Wagons - Numbers 7

One thing that TB pointed out that I think is important is that from Exodus 40, all through Leviticus, until Numbers 7, all that happened in just 50 days according to the timeline given in the Torah. He says, “These events all occur in a timeframe beginning on the 1st day of the 1st month of the 2nd year after they left Egypt, and ending on the 20th day of the 2nd month of the 2nd year… only about 50 days… We know that the building of the tabernacle was completed on the 1st day of the 1st month of the 2nd year.” We discussed Exodus 40 on February 9th, and now it’s almost the end of the year, and I feel like I’ve lived 8 lifetimes since then, so even though it feels like it’s been a long time for me, it’s only been 50 days for the people.

Additionally, chapter 7 is one of the longest in the Torah, 89 verses, but it’s highly repetitive, so it won’t be that heavy. The tabernacle was being set to be opened for use, and I’m a little fuzzy on the exact details but all 12 tribes brought things to give to the tabernacle for use within. TB clarifies some of this for me, initially there are brought 6 wagons full of items and were given to certain Levite clans so that they could be used in the tabernacle and so that the Levites could use the wagons to transport most items of the tabernacle because they were so heavy. For instance, one clan was in charge of transporting the large wooden beams that were used to hold the structure of the tabernacle and those would have been brutal to carry because they were each so heavy and large. The wagons were used for those purposes, or for like transporting the heavy fabric material that were used for the doors and the actual tent, stuff like that.

These 6 large wagon fulls of stuff were meant to be a communal offering considered to be from all the people, all tribes. It seems that I’m misinterpreting some of this. When I read “six covered wagons, and twelve oxen,” I assumed that those wagons were filled with goods to be use in the temple, but it appears that they were empty and it was just the actual wagon and oxen that were the communal gifts to the Levites to help transport the tabernacle. That makes more sense because I was pretty perplexed about what was going to happen with all the stuff in the wagons, what it was, where did it come from, and what was it going to be used for. But empty wagons makes more sense.

One thing that’s interesting to note about the wagons is that most of the elements of the tabernacle were allowed to be transported in the wagons, but certain elements were not, such as the ark of the covenant. There is an incident in 1 Chronicles 13:1-12 that talks about King David calling for the ark of the covenant to be brought to him and the man in charge of the ark was named Uzzah and this is the famous account of the ark almost falling onto the ground during transport and Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady the ark and God kills him for it. This seems like a serious over reaction to me, but I saw an Instagram post about this incident several months ago and thought what they said was interesting.

What the video said was that Israel had been conquered by enemies and the tabernacle ransacked because of disobedience and then when Israel was allowed to return to their homes and took the temple stuff back with them, the ark of the covenant sat in the house of this man Uzzah. I’m not exactly sure what he was supposed to do with it, but it lived in his house with him. Additionally, when it was transported, it was put into the back of a wagon and sent that way when God explicitly states that it is to be hand carried. So when the ark falls, it is falling out of the wagon that it wasn’t supposed to be transported in in the first place, so Uzzah was struck down by God not only because he touched the ark, which was forbidden, but also because he had the ark in the back of a wagon, which was also forbidden. The video also noted that because the ark of the covenant lived in his house with him, it became common place to him and he lost respect for the sacredness of the ark and what it represented. It was basically that he lost respect for the sacredness of God and treated holy things as common and that’s another reason why he was killed. I don’t know how accurate that is, but I thought that it was interesting I’m sure we’ll talk about it again when we get to Chronicles.

After the empty wagons were presented, now, each “prince” of each tribe presented a gift for the tabernacle, each day for 12 days. The gift was all the same, each day from everybody, one silver charger that weighed 130 shekels, one silver bowl that weighed 70 shekels, “both of them were full of fine flour mingled with oil for a meat offering,” one spoon weighing 10 shekels of gold, full of incense, one young bullock, one ram, one lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and for the peace offerings: 2 oxen, 5 rams, 5 he goats, and 5 lambs of the first year.

Chapter 7 is so long because the listing of what each tribe brought took 6 verses and the same exact thing is repeated 12 times after naming who was the “prince” that brought the offering forward. Add to that a few descriptive verses and talk about the wagons and that’s 89 verses.