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Numbers 33 Bible study: Every stage of the way
Moses wrote this list "by the commandment of the LORD" (33:2): forty-one camps from Rameses to the plains of Moab, with twelve in a row that no story in Numbers mentions (33:18-29). And the chapter ends by turning its warning on Israel: "as I thought to do to them, so I will do to you" (33:56).
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“Moses wrote the starting points of their journeys by the commandment of the LORD. These are their journeys according to their starting points.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“Numbers says Moses wrote down the stages of Israel's journey by the commandment of the LORD.”
Is that in Numbers 33, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Written by command
The chapter opens with a heading: "These are the journeys of the children of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron" (33:1). Then it says who wrote it and why: "Moses wrote the starting points of their journeys by the commandment of the LORD" (33:2). The same verse ends by turning its words around, "These are their journeys according to their starting points" (33:2). In Hebrew the pair is motsa'eihem lemas'eihem at the start of the verse and mas'eihem lemotsa'eihem at the end. What follows is almost all one line, said again and again: "They traveled from… and encamped in…" (33:5-48).
Where it leads to Jesus
He wrote about me
Numbers 33:2leads toJohn 5:46-47
Numbers says, "Moses wrote the starting points of their journeys by the commandment of the LORD" (33:2). Jesus said, "For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:46-47). Jesus doesn't name this list, so setting the two together is a reading: some take "his writings" to take in all that Moses wrote, this record of the journey among them; others read Jesus as pointing to what Moses wrote of him in particular, such as the prophet "like me" (Deuteronomy 18:15), which Peter quotes of "Christ Jesus" (Acts 3:20-22), and take this chapter only as one of the places the Bible says Moses wrote.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Numbers 33
That was a taste
The rest of Numbers 33 is waiting in Favor
- The day they left
- Forty-one camps
- Drive out, destroy, divide
- A death dated to the day
- Passover at both ends
- 17 questions as you read
- 13 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Numbers 33 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
מַסַּעmassa'say mas-SA
Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "pulling up, breaking camp, setting out, journey"; Strong's, "from 5265; a departure (from striking the tents), i.e. march (not necessarily a single day's travel)". The chapter's heading uses it: "These are the journeys of the children of Israel" (33:1), and it comes twice more in the next verse (33:2). It comes only twelve times in the Hebrew Bible; seven are in Numbers, four of them in Numbers 10, where the trumpets are for "the journeying of the camps" (Numbers 10:2), and three here. Exodus ends with it: the cloud was on the tabernacle "throughout all their journeys" (Exodus 40:38).
For your group
Numbers 33 Bible study questions
- 1The LORD had Moses write down every camp, including the ones where nothing is told (33:2, 33:18-29). If you wrote the "starting points" of your own journey with God, which places would be on the list, and why?
- 2The warning was about what Israel would let stay: "those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes" (33:55). Why do you think small compromises are so easy to live with at first?
- 3"As I thought to do to them, so I will do to you" (33:56). How does it change things to know God holds his own people to the same standard he holds everyone else?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Numbers 33 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home