Sanctions and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Numbers

The book of Numbers is the book of sanctions.

The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is structured in terms of the biblical covenant model: transcendence, hierarchy, ethics, oath, and succession. Numbers deals with the oath-bound sanctions of God's covenant law. Israel's wilderness experience demonstrates the predictability of God's corporate sanctions in history.

The Book of Numbers is a book about winners and losers in the wilderness. Members of the generation of the exodus were losers. The first nineteen chapters of Numbers are a chronicle of Israel's first two years in the wilderness - a period of continual rebellion - and God's sanctions against the nation. Chapter 20 is the transitional chapter: the deaths of Aaron and Miriam, and the sin of Moses in striking the rock twice with the rod. Beginning immediately after the negative sanction of the fiery serpents (Num. 21:5-10), the signs of victory appear. The generation of the conquest begins to exercise dominion through military conquest outside the boundaries of Canaan.

God's four oath-bound covenants - personal, ecclesiastical, familial, civil - are package deals. Each is an integrated system. God's historical sanctions, both positive and negative, must not be considered judicially optional. They are part of the covenantal framework. Similarly, lawful inheritance in history is not to be considered apart from the other four points. A society's responses to God's revealed law brings predictable corporate sanctions in history. These sanctions in turn produce corporate inheritance and disinheritance in history. The Israelites should have learned this lesson the time of the exodus, when they "borrowed" the inheritance of the recently deceased firstborn sons of those families that resided close to the Pharaoh's capital city. But they did not learn it, any more than Pharaoh did. Pharaoh died in the Red Sea alongside his charioteers. The generation of the exodus died in the wilderness.

Four centuries before the exodus, God had told Abraham of the inheritance to come (Gen 15:16). The succession of the fourth generation began in Numbers 20. The preliminary conquests began in Chapter 21. The operation of the system of covenantal sanctions became visible to the fourth generation and to those who dwelled inside Canaan's borders, who soon heard of the judgment that had come on Israel's enemies (Josh. 2:10).

The Book of Numbers stands as a warning to men: those societies that disobey God's Bible-revealed law will not inherit in history. Either they will be destroyed (covenant-breakers) or their inheritance will be delayed, to be collected by a later generation. This covenantal theme is rejected by all covenant-breakers and most covenant-breakers in our era. This is why the visible transfer of the inheritance to the lawful heirs has been delayed.

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