Punishment and Forgiveness in Israel's Migratory Campaign

Won W. Lee is associate professor of Old Testament at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
-Publisher

Arguably the most diverse book of the Old Testament, Numbers lacks any obvious structure or organization. This appears to be especially true of Numbers 10:11-36:13. In "Punishment and Forgiveness in Israel's Migratory Campaign" Won Lee brings clarity to this passage of Scripture by properly fitting the text into the overarching theology of Numbers. According to Lee, the major divisions and thirty-six subunits that make up Numbers 10:11-36:13 are understandable only if seen against the backdrop of God's relationship with Israel. This portion of Scripture, which recounts Israel's failure to conquer the Promised Land, finds its conceptual structure in God's responses: first, the punishment of Israel's forty-year sojourn in the desert and, second, the beginnings of God's forgiveness, signaled by the success of the second-generation Israelites in defeating the Canaanites. By treating the structure of the text as the central problem in its interpretation and presenting a proposal grounded in solid exegesis, Lee demonstrates that despite the diverse, disparate material found in Numbers 10:11-36:13, this text is in fact a self-contained, well-organized, and coherent unit with an important theological message.
-Publisher

According to Lee, the major divisions and thirty-six subunits that make up Numbers 10:11-36:13 are understandable only if seen against the backdrop of God's relationship with Israel. This portion of Scripture, which recounts Israel's failure to conquer the Promised Land, finds its conceptual structure in God's responses: first, the punishment of Israel's forty-year sojourn in the desert and, second, the beginnings of God's forgiveness, signaled by the success of the second-generation Israelites in defeating the Canaanites. By treating the structure of the text as the central problem in its interpretation and presenting a proposal grounded in solid exegesis, Lee demonstrates that despite the diverse, disparate material found in Numbers 10:11-36:13, this text is in fact a self-contained, well-organized, and coherent unit with an important theological message.
-Publisher