BIAY - A Process for Justice
Numbers 34-36, Psalm 37:23-40
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
Orderly assignment of boundaries (Num 34:18) - With this many tribes, that’s a lot of people and expectations to manage. I appreciate two things about this chapter. First, an orderly attention to boundaries and second, sharing the work across all twelve tribes with one leader from each appointed to “help assign the land.” All tribes are impacted and have a stake in a fair and just process and all are included in the work.
Cities of Refuge (Num 35:5-12) - How to handle preserving those who have killed someone unintentionally from facing vengeance before trial? I appreciate the attention in this chapter to the injustice of murder, to the awful occasion and consequences of unintentional killing, and to the very real challenge of someone seeking vengeance for the loss of a family member. It is difficult to connect fully with some specifics of these sorts of chapters because the solutions belong to a very different era and culture than mine in the modern West (though some tenets are clearly within the canon of influences on the modern Western rule of law). That said, reading within this within its own context displays the importance of attending to and making provisions for various legal and ethical challenges in order for this society to function well and justly.
Preservation of family resources (Num 36:5-10) - Preserving land within families and tribes was a key measure to ensure the economic welfare of people in the society. In the case of a patriarch with only daughters, like Zelophehad, the land would go to their husbands’ tribes eventually, thus depleting the provision made to these women’s family clans. This is not the sort of solution needed in the modern West, but in the Ancient Near East, I appreciate that this conundrum was taken seriously and that the issue that arose for these daughters was not ignored but addressed.
Questions:
When have you needed to include impacted parties in a decision-making process?
When have you wanted to be included in decisions that impacted you?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, draw me into deeper delight in you and make firm my steps. Though life trips me up, uphold me with your hand. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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