So the people of Gad and the people of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chiefs of the congregation “. . .the land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.”  And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession.  Do not take us across the Jordan.” – Numbers 32:2-5

This is the last…

“God brings them out of Egypt and is for them like the horns of the wild ox.  For there is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel; now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, ‘What has God wrought!’  Behold, a people!  As a lioness it rises up and as a lion it lifts itself; it does not lie down until it has devoured the prey and drunk the blood of the slain.” – Numbers 23:22-24

The books of the Torah must have been written at a…

And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and they said, “We will not come up. Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us? Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put our the eyes of these men? We will not come up.” – Numbers…

Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.  Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life.  If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. – Leviticus 24:17-20

I think there are two main things I want in my reading material: one is that I want things to be happening, and the other is that I…

And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights.  He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. – Exodus 34:27-28

I regret to report that Exodus, after a powerful opening quarter, ended with a very protracted, very frustrating, very inconclusive…

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded.  Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.  Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. – Exodus 7:10-11

Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded.  In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water…