As I was reading in the biblical book of Numbers, the repetition of a phrase in chapters one and two caught my attention. The phrase appears in the final verse of both chapters. It is, “The sons of Israel did exactly as Yahweh had ordered Moses.” (The Jerusalem Bible, 1966) What did the sons of Israel do exactly? They pitched the Tabernacle of the Lord when the Israelites stopped and disassembled it when the Israelites broke camp. The process had specific steps so that all the pieces of this special tent were treated with the utmost respect and care. After all, this tent was where the glory of the Lord appeared to Moses.
“Doing exactly as the Lord had ordered” is a rare phrase in the Old Testament. In Judges, for instance, the Israelites “did what displeases the Lord.” (Judges 3:7, JB) The last verse of Judges sums up the behavior of the Israelites in this way, “…every man did as he pleased.” (Judges 21:25, JB) So it is with the person who does not believe in God. Doing what he pleased suggests a choice was made. The choice was between obeying what the Lord had commanded or following one’s own way. Many times in the Old Testament, the Israelites chose the latter.
One Son of Israel always did exactly as the Lord ordered: Jesus. As Hebrews 5:15 asserts, “For it is not as if we had a high priest who was incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us; but we have one who had been tempted in every way that we are, though he is without sin.” (JB) This Son of Israel was the redemption for the rest of the sons and daughters of Israel who did not do exactly as the Lord had ordered through the Law. He also was the redemption for the rest of the world. In a letter to Titus, Paul wrote, “He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good.” (Titus 2:14, JB) Jesus was flawlessly obedient to the Lord.
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