100 Fun Facts About Book of Numbers

Which animal, beaten three times by Balaam on the road to Moab, opened its mouth and spoke to him?

A donkey saw the angel with the drawn sword that Balaam could not, and only after the third beating did it ask, 'What have I done to you?' Balaam then saw the angel too and offered to turn back.

What did Moses raise on a pole so the bitten could look and live, an object Hezekiah later smashed?

A bronze serpent on a pole healed anyone who looked at it, and Israel kept it for centuries until Hezekiah broke up the relic, by then called Nehushtan, because people were burning incense to it. Jesus compares himself to it in John 3:14.

How many years was Israel sentenced to wander, one year for each day the spies had explored Canaan?

Forty years meant everyone counted in the census aged twenty or over would die in the desert, and only the two spies who had dissented were spared to enter the land.

What did Moses' spies carry on a pole between two men from the Valley of Eshkol in Canaan?

A cluster of grapes so heavy it took two men to carry gave the valley its name, Eshkol, 'cluster'. The spies showed it off as proof the land flowed with milk and honey, then ten of them said its people could not be beaten.

What fate befell Dathan and Abiram, with their households, for defying Moses in Korah's revolt?

Swallowed by the earth, they 'went down alive into the realm of the dead', yet Korah's own sons survived, and eleven psalms, Psalm 84 among them, are headed 'of the sons of Korah'.

What did Aaron's staff sprout overnight when laid before the ark beside the other tribes' staffs?

Almonds, along with buds and blossoms, settled that only Aaron's line held the priesthood, and the staff was kept before the ark as a warning; Hebrews 9:4 says it lay inside the ark itself.

What had God told Moses to do to the rock at Meribah, which he struck twice with his staff instead?

Speak to it was all God had asked of Moses at the rock; he struck it twice instead, and the water still gushed for the whole community. For failing to 'honor me as holy', he and Aaron were both barred from Canaan.

Who was struck leprous, 'as white as snow', for speaking against Moses over his Cushite wife?

Miriam, Moses' sister, was shut outside the camp for seven days while the whole nation waited, and she died and was buried at Kadesh before Israel's final march.

Which spy, like Joshua, was allowed into Canaan because he 'followed the LORD wholeheartedly'?

Caleb, 'because he has a different spirit', was promised the land he had scouted, and in Joshua 14 he claims Hebron at eighty-five, 'still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out'.

What did a wind from the sea pile two cubits deep around the camp after Israel grew sick of manna?

Quail fell a day's walk in every direction, but while the meat was still between their teeth a plague struck, and the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, 'graves of craving'.

Which word completes the Priestly Blessing: 'the LORD make his face shine on you and be ___ to you'?

Gracious is the word, and when kohanim give this blessing they spread their fingers in a gesture Leonard Nimoy glimpsed in synagogue as a boy and later turned into Spock's Vulcan salute.

In the Numbers census, whom did the Levites, counted from a month old, replace one for one?

Israel's firstborn sons, 22,273 of them, were swapped for the 22,000 Levites as God's own. The 273 left over had to be bought back at five shekels a head, paid to Aaron.

Which vow in Numbers 6 bans wine, razors and corpses, and was later kept from birth by Samson?

Nazirite vows normally ended with the hair shaved and burned under the fellowship offering, and in Acts 21 Paul pays the expenses of four men completing theirs.

What was Joshua's name before Moses renamed him, as recorded in the list of the twelve spies?

Hoshea means 'salvation' and Yehoshua 'the LORD is salvation', a name that passed through Greek as Iesous, the same form the New Testament uses for Jesus.

Whose descendants, living at Hebron, made ten of the spies feel 'like grasshoppers' by comparison?

Anak's descendants, whom the spies tied to the Nephilim, the giants of Genesis 6, so frightened the camp that the people wept all night and talked of choosing a leader to take them back to Egypt.

Which killers could shelter in the six cities of refuge Moses set aside?

Those who killed without intent could flee to six Levite towns, three on each bank of the Jordan, and were tried by the assembly; a murderer got no shelter, and no ransom could buy his life.

Until what event did a killer have to stay inside his city of refuge?

The death of the high priest freed every refugee at once, which is why, the Mishnah says, the priest's mother sent them food and clothing so they would not pray for her son to die.

Which king of Moab hired a seer from the Euphrates to curse the Israelites camped on his border?

Balak son of Zippor led the seer to three different hilltops and built seven altars at each, and got a blessing on Israel every time instead of a curse.

Which sign in Balaam's oracle, 'I see him, but not now', gave the rebel Bar Kokhba his name?

A star, kokhav in Hebrew, is why Simon bar Kosiba's followers hailed him as Bar Kokhba, 'son of the star', when he led the revolt against Rome that erupted in 132.

What does the synagogue prayer Mah Tovu call 'beautiful', in words lifted from Balaam's blessing?

Jacob's tents are praised in Numbers 24:5, so the prayer said on entering a synagogue opens with the words of a non-Israelite seer who had been hired to curse Israel, not bless it.

Which god did Israel 'yoke themselves to' after Moabite women invited the men to their sacrifices?

Baal of Peor cost 24,000 lives in the plague that followed, a toll Paul gives as 23,000 'in one day' in 1 Corinthians 10:8.

What did Zelophehad's five daughters win from Moses, since their father had died leaving no sons?

The right to inherit land passed to daughters when a man died without sons, a ruling the LORD himself endorsed, 'What Zelophehad's daughters are saying is right', on condition they married within their tribe.

On which mountain did Aaron die after Moses stripped his priestly garments and put them on his son?

Mount Hor, on the border of Edom, is where Aaron was sent to die, barred from Canaan because he and Moses had rebelled at the waters of Meribah, and all Israel mourned him for thirty days.

Which son of Aaron had the 250 rebels' censers hammered into sheets to overlay the altar?

Eleazar collected the censers from the charred remains as a sign that only Aaron's descendants could burn incense, and he later succeeded Aaron in office.

What punishment did the whole assembly carry out on a man caught gathering wood on the Sabbath?

Stoning outside the camp was ordered only after the man had been held in custody because 'it was not clear what should be done to him', and the ruling came straight from the LORD.

What, each with a blue cord, were Israelites told to wear on the corners of their garments?

Tassels with a blue thread became the tzitzit on the Jewish prayer shawl. The recipe for the dye, tekhelet, was lost for centuries, and many now trace it to a Mediterranean sea snail, Hexaplex trunculus, though the match is debated.

What did Moses beg Hobab, his Midianite in-law, to be for Israel on the march?

Their eyes, Moses said, because Hobab knew where to camp in the wilderness. He refused at first, yet Judges later places Kenite descendants of Moses' in-laws in the Negev near Arad.

Which king of Heshbon barred Israel from the King's Highway and lost his land from Arnon to Jabbok?

Sihon's capital Heshbon was later rebuilt by one of the herd-owning tribes that chose to settle east of the Jordan, on the land he lost by refusing Israel the road.

Which king of Bashan, whose army met Israel at Edrei, was the last of the giant Rephaites?

Og's iron bed, Deuteronomy adds, was more than nine cubits long, about four metres, and could still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites; his land went to half the tribe of Manasseh.

Which two tribes asked Moses for Jazer and Gilead, east of the Jordan, to graze their huge herds?

Reuben and Gad got Gilead on condition their fighting men crossed the Jordan first, with Moses' warning, 'you may be sure that your sin will find you out'.

Who was counted in the census that opens the Book of Numbers, a total of 603,550?

Men able to bear arms, aged twenty and over, made up the 603,550, with the Levites left out to guard the tabernacle. A second count a generation later found 601,730: nearly all on the first list had died, yet the army had barely shrunk.

Which tribe, the largest in both censuses, camped on the east and always marched first?

Judah's lead outlasted the march: the tribe gave its name to the kingdom of Judah and, by way of the Hebrew Yehudi, to the word 'Jew'.

According to Numbers 11, what did manna taste like once it was ground and cooked?

Pastry made with olive oil is the taste Numbers gives it, while Exodus 16 had said 'wafers made with honey', and the people wept for Egypt's fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

How many elders did Moses gather at the tent of meeting to share the Spirit and his burden?

Seventy elders prophesied when the Spirit rested on them, and two who had stayed in camp, Eldad and Medad, prophesied too, prompting Moses to wish 'that all the LORD's people were prophets'.

What did Moses have made of hammered silver to summon the assembly and signal the camps to move?

Two trumpets blown by Aaron's sons carried a code: both together gathered the whole assembly, one alone summoned the clan heads, and short blasts sent the camps on their way.

From which Egyptian city does Numbers 33 start its list of the 42 camps on Israel's way to Moab?

Rameses is where the list begins, the day after the first Passover, while the Egyptians were still burying their dead. Moses wrote the 42 stages down 'at the LORD's command'.

What were the Levites given in place of a tribal territory, as pay for their work at the tent of meeting?

Israel's tithes were the Levites' wage for serving at the tent of meeting, and they tithed in turn: a tenth of what they received, a tithe of the tithe, went on to Aaron the priest.

According to Numbers 8, what did a Levite have to do on reaching the age of fifty?

Retire from regular service was the rule at fifty, though he could still assist at the tent. Numbers 8 starts Levites at twenty-five and Numbers 4 at thirty, a gap the rabbis read as a five-year apprenticeship.

What did Numbers 5 make a wife suspected of adultery drink to reveal whether she was guilty?

Water mixed with floor dust from the tabernacle, with written curses washed into it, was the sotah ordeal, which the Mishnah says was abolished 'when adulterers became many'.

What did Moses say whenever the ark set out: 'Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be ___'?

Scattered is the word, and Psalm 68 opens by echoing it, 'May God arise, may his enemies be scattered', while the ark's halt had its own line, 'Return, LORD, to the countless thousands of Israel'.

Which lost work does Numbers 21 quote on 'Zahab in Suphah and the ravines'?

The Book of the Wars of the LORD is named nowhere else and is lost, and its one quoted scrap is so obscure that the King James Bible read 'Zahab in Suphah' as 'What he did in the Red sea'.

Which quality does Numbers 12:3 credit Moses with more than any other man then alive?

Humility, 'very meek' in the King James, is claimed for Moses in the very chapter where two of his own family challenge his authority, and it is the LORD, not Moses, who calls the pair out and rebukes them.

What does the name Meribah mean, shared with the Exodus 17 spring that was also called Massah?

Quarrelling is the sense of Meribah, and Psalm 95 warns 'do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah', whose own name means 'testing'.

How did Balaam, the seer who had blessed Israel from the hilltops, die according to Numbers 31?

Cut down in battle alongside the five kings of Midian, Balaam is blamed in Numbers 31:16 for advising the Midianites to lure Israel into sin, so the blessing and the betrayal came from the same mouth.

Which priest, who had once stopped a plague with a spear thrust, went with the army against Midian?

Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, went as priest with 12,000 men, a thousand from each tribe. They came home with not one man missing, and the officers gave 16,750 shekels of captured gold as an offering.

What is the Hebrew title of the Book of Numbers, a word taken from its opening verse?

Bemidbar comes from the first verse's 'in the Desert of Sinai', while the English title follows the Greek Arithmoi, a nod to the two censuses that bracket the wandering years.

What did Moses do to Joshua before the whole assembly to commission him as Israel's next leader?

Laid his hands on him, and Deuteronomy 34 adds that Joshua was 'filled with the spirit of wisdom' as a result, the act Jewish tradition treats as the first rabbinic ordination, semikhah.

What title does Numbers 35 give the relative entitled to kill a murderer on sight?

The avenger of blood, go'el ha-dam, uses the same Hebrew word as the kinsman-redeemer who marries Ruth: a near relative duty-bound to act for the family.

From which range east of the Jordan was Moses told to view the land he would never enter?

Abarim is the range Deuteronomy 32 names again when Moses is sent up Mount Nebo to die there 'just as your brother Aaron died'.

Where did Aaron stand to stop the plague after Korah's revolt?

Between the living and the dead is where Aaron stood, censer of burning incense in hand, having run into the crowd on Moses' orders. The plague stopped there, but 14,700 had already died, besides the 250 burned the day before.

Which phrase from Balaam's oracles did Samuel Morse send as his first official telegraph message?

What hath God wrought was chosen for Morse by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the patent commissioner who had championed his telegraph, and flashed from Washington to Baltimore.

Which actor based Star Trek's Vulcan salute on the hand sign of the Numbers 6 Priestly Blessing?

Leonard Nimoy had peeked as a boy while the priests of his Orthodox synagogue blessed the congregation, their fingers parted to form the Hebrew letter shin.

Which two foods did the returning spies say the land of Canaan 'flows with' in Numbers 13?

Milk and honey was the spies' own verdict on Canaan, yet all but two of them went on to insist that its walled cities and towering people made it impossible to conquer.

What colour was the heifer of Numbers 19, whose ashes purified anyone who had touched a corpse?

Red was the rule, and the heifer also had to be one that had never worn a yoke; it was burned outside the camp with cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet.

Which book follows Numbers in the Bible, made up largely of Moses' farewell speeches to Israel?

Deuteronomy picks up on the plains of Moab exactly where Numbers stops, with Moses addressing the generation that is about to cross the river without him.

Which image did Moses use for a leaderless Israel when he asked God to appoint his successor?

Sheep without a shepherd is the picture Moses chose, and Mark's Gospel reuses it when Jesus looks with compassion on the great crowd that had followed him.

What did Moses tell the tribes settling east of the Jordan 'will find you out' if they broke faith?

Your sin, Moses said, would catch up with them if they stayed home, so the eastern tribes promised to march armed ahead of the rest until every tribe had its territory.

What covered the tabernacle by day, glowed like fire by night and told Israel when to break camp?

A cloud set the timetable: whether it stayed for two days, a month or a year, Israel stayed put, and the people marched only when it lifted.

Opposite which Canaanite city was Israel camped on the plains of Moab when Numbers ends?

Jericho lay just across the Jordan from the camp where Moses took the second census, gave his last laws and named Joshua to lead the crossing.

Joshua, named in Numbers as the successor to Moses, is always called the son of which man?

Nun shares his name with a Hebrew letter, and Torah scrolls bracket two verses of Numbers 10 with a pair of upside-down nuns.

Which food did the Israelites weep over in Numbers 11, recalling that they ate it in Egypt for free?

Fish headed their wistful menu, followed by cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic, as they complained that there was nothing to look at but manna.

Which seed does Numbers 11 say manna resembled, before describing how it was milled and boiled?

Coriander is the comparison, with a look like the resin bdellium, and it settled on the camp each night along with the dew.

Which festival could Israelites who were unclean or travelling keep a month late under Numbers 9?

Passover gained a second date, the fourteenth day of the second month, after a group who had handled a corpse asked Moses why they should miss out.

Which animal did Numbers 28 require as a burnt offering twice every day, at morning and at evening?

A lamb a year old and without defect was offered each morning and each evening, with fine flour, oil and a drink offering alongside.

Which body of water, the 'Great Sea' of Numbers 34, forms the western border of the promised land?

The Mediterranean was the Great Sea to Romans too, who called it Mare Magnum; Numbers 34 goes on to name a leader from each tribe to share out the territory.

Which kingdom, greeted by Moses as a brother nation, refused Israel passage and forced a detour?

Edom answered Moses' polite request, with its promise to pay for every drink the herds took, by marching out an army, so Israel swung away around its border.

From which language's title, Arithmoi, does the English name of the Book of Numbers come?

Greek translators of the Septuagint named the book for its two censuses of the tribes, and the Latin Bible followed suit with Numeri.

At which mountain is Israel camped when the Book of Numbers opens, in the second year out of Egypt?

Sinai is the setting of the first ten chapters, and Israel breaks camp there only nineteen days after the opening census is ordered.

Which word completes Balaam's oracle in Numbers 23: 'God is not a man, that he should ___'?

Lie is the word, from the oracle Balaam delivers after the king of Moab drags him to a second vantage point, hoping for a different answer.

Which pair prophesied inside the camp in Numbers 11, prompting Joshua to ask Moses to stop them?

Eldad and Medad carried on prophesying, and Moses brushed off the objection, wishing that every one of the LORD's people were a prophet.

From which metal was the tabernacle's seven-lamp stand hammered, from its base up to its flowers?

Gold was beaten into shape rather than cast, following a pattern the LORD had shown Moses, and Aaron set the lamps to throw their light forward.

From between which two figures above the ark did Moses hear God's voice in Numbers 7?

Cherubim flanked the ark's cover, the mercy seat, and the voice came to Moses there once the tribal leaders' twelve days of offerings were over.

Which two sons of Aaron had died childless for offering unauthorised fire before the LORD?

Nadab and Abihu were the two eldest, so the priesthood passed to their younger brothers, one of whom later succeeded Aaron.

Which patriarch's descendants count as two tribes in the Numbers census, each named for a son?

Joseph's double share keeps the tally at twelve tribes, because Levi is left out of the main count and put in charge of the tabernacle.

Which giants of Genesis 6 did the frightened spies claim to have seen living in Canaan?

Nephilim was the spies' most alarming claim, made as part of a report that Canaan was a country that devoured the people who lived in it.

Which people helped the Canaanites rout Israelites who stormed the hills against Moses' warning?

Amalekites and Canaanites chased the attackers as far as Hormah, for neither Moses nor the ark had left the camp with them.

At which desert oasis did the spies report back, and Moses later strike the rock for water?

Kadesh was the chief camp of the wandering years, and the failed first attempt to invade Canaan was also launched from there.

Which substance names the everlasting covenant God makes with Aaron's priestly family in Numbers 18?

Salt seals a second biblical pact too: Chronicles uses the same phrase for God's promise of the kingship to David and his descendants.

What did Israel sing to at Beer, in a short song about leaders digging with their staffs?

A well drew a rare burst of song from Israel on the road to Moab, at a place where God had told Moses to gather the people and promised them a drink.

What royal object does Balaam's oracle in Numbers 24 say will rise out of Israel and crush Moab?

A sceptre rising to crush Moab is an image later quoted at Qumran, where several of the Dead Sea texts cite this oracle.

Which New Testament book condemns the 'teaching of Balaam' in a letter to the church at Pergamum?

Revelation blames Balaam for coaching Moab's king to trip Israel up with idol feasts and immorality, a charge that Numbers 31 also lays at his door.

Besides a husband, who could cancel a woman's vow on the day he heard it under Numbers 30?

Her father could overrule a vow made while she lived in his house, but a widow or a divorced woman was bound by every word she had pledged.

What did Moses warn that any Canaanites left in the country would become in Israel's sides?

Thorns in the side and pricks in the eye were the price of half-measures, and God added that he would then treat Israel as he had meant to treat Canaan's peoples.

Whom did Zelophehad's five daughters marry, obeying the ruling that closes the Book of Numbers?

Their cousins on the father's side were the match for all five sisters, and with that wedding notice the story of the journey to Canaan's border ends.

Near which city were tiny scrolls with the Numbers 6 blessing found, the oldest known Bible text?

Jerusalem's Ketef Hinnom tombs yielded the two silver scrolls in 1979, after a 13-year-old volunteer chanced on a chamber preserved under a collapsed ceiling.

What did Numbers 8 require the Levites to shave before they began their duties at the tabernacle?

Their whole bodies went under the razor, and the Levites were then sprinkled with cleansing water and had their clothes washed before starting work.

What did the overburdened Moses ask God to do to him at once when Israel wept for meat?

Take his life was Moses' plea, as a leader who felt like a nurse carrying an entire nation of infants, and God answered by sharing the load among the elders.

How was the territory in Canaan to be shared among the tribes, according to Numbers 26?

By lot was the method, with one adjustment: after the second census, the bigger tribes were to receive bigger holdings and the smaller ones less.

Which place does Numbers hold among the five books of the Torah that open the Bible?

Fourth in the Torah, Numbers follows Leviticus and carries Israel from the mountain of the law to the border of Canaan.

Which tribe was split in two, half of it joining the herdsmen tribes east of the Jordan?

Manasseh's eastern half, led by the clan of Machir, captured Gilead and settled there, while the rest of the tribe waited for territory west of the river.

Which people, ruled from Heshbon, lost their towns east of the Jordan to Israel in Numbers 21?

Amorites had themselves seized Heshbon from an earlier king of Moab, and Israel moved into their towns after winning the battle at Jahaz.

Which Levite clan got no carts for the march because it bore the holiest objects on its shoulders?

Kohathites could not touch or even glimpse the furnishings until Aaron's sons had covered them, while the other clans loaded frames and curtains onto ox-carts.

Which tribe marched last of all as the rear guard whenever Israel's camp moved on?

The Danites led the last of the four divisions, which camped on the north side of the tabernacle alongside Asher and Naphtali.

Which tribe shrank by more than half between the two censuses, falling from 59,300 to 22,200?

Simeon ended as the smallest of the twelve tribes counted, and Zimri, the chief slain during the plague in Moab, came from one of its leading houses.

Which god's people does the taunt song of Heshbon in Numbers 21 call the defeated Moabites?

Chemosh was Moab's chief god, and on the Mesha Stele a Moabite king explains Israel's long oppression of Moab by saying the god was angry with his land.

Which oasis on the Numbers 33 itinerary is remembered for its twelve springs and its palm trees?

Elim comes straight after Marah in the list, which logs every camp from the day Israel left Egypt to the plains beside the Jordan.

Which of Zelophehad's daughters shares her name with an early capital of the northern kingdom?

Tirzah the city served Israel's northern kings as a capital until Omri, after six years there, moved the court to Samaria.

At which last camp east of the Jordan did the Israelites begin consorting with Moabite women?

Shittim was also Joshua's base when he later sent two scouts over the river, and its name is the Hebrew word for acacia wood.

Which unit of weight, set by a sanctuary standard, measures the silver gifts and dues in Numbers?

The shekel of the sanctuary was fixed at twenty gerahs, and each tribal leader's dedication gift included a silver dish weighing 130 of them.

Which tribe did Joshua represent among the scouts Moses sent to explore Canaan?

Ephraim also headed the western division of the camp, the third of the four to move whenever Israel set out.