C. H. Mackintosh, in his Notes on the Pentateuch, discusses church discipline in his commentary on Numbers 5:3 - "that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof...
When Moses was distressed because of the greatness of the task of leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, God commanded him to gather seventy elders to help him carry the burden (Numbers 11:16). Moses gathered the seventy round about the tabernacle and the spirit that was on Moses rested on the seventy (Numbers 11:24-25).
Near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar in India, Bimbala Das wore a silk saree while Hindu priests chanted a mantra for the wedding ceremony. The groom, a cobra that lives in a nearby ant hill, failed to attend the ceremony. A specially prepared brass serpent stood in for the real groom. Das, who is 30, had been very ill until she began taking milk to the cobra. She credited the snake with her healing and fell in love with her benefactor. The villages welcomed the wedding as a sign of good fortune and made a great feast on the wedding day. Das has moved to a hut close to the ant hill where her "husband" lives. Hinduism venerates snakes and especially King Cobra who is worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction. Das is not the first woman to marry an animal with the blessings of the Hindu priests. Earlier this year, a woman in the area was married to a dog. The brass serpent was used in the Bible for the healing of the disobedient Israelites (Numbers 21:4-9). However, when the Israelites later made an idol out of the brasen serpent, it became a sin to them and Hezekiah destroyed it. He called it Nehushtan, meaning, a piece of brass (2Kings 18:4).
I believe that God weaves His design into the Bible in many ways. One thing He uses is numbers and the number He uses most prominently is the number seven. I saw this again today as I worked on a study of the Third Epistle of John. Although by verse count, its 14 verses are one more than the 13 verses of 2 John, it actually has 4 words less than 2 John. Therefore, by word count it is the smallest book in the Bible. But in this tiny book, God leaves His footprint. The subject matter is fascinating and helpful, but there is much for the lover of numbers as well. Seven is used in the Bible as the number of God's perfect work. Let's see how this number shows God's work in 2John. An outstanding number of statistics are multiples of seven.
In the 1780's, the Baptist pastor John Leland was fighting against Virginia state taxes going to support the Episcopalian clergy. One clergyman argued that they had to have the tax income in order to have the time needed to prepare for sermons. Leland responded that he could expound the scriptures without special preparation and the Episcopalian challenged him to prove it by preaching on a text provided just before the sermon. "Leland went into the pulpit and was handed a text which proved to be Numbers 22:21, 'And Balaam saddled his ass.' Mr Leland first commented on the account from which the text was taken, and then said he should divide his subject into three parts: 1st, Balaam, as a false prophet, represents a hireling clergy; 2nd, the saddle represents their enormous salaries, and 3rd, the dumb ass represents the people who will bare such a load." Quote taken from "How Satan Turned America Against God" by William P. Grady (p.159-160).
One of the most interesting short verses in the Bible reads, "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying." In seven simple words (seven being the number of perfection), The Bible identifies the source of what Moses wrote. It did not come from Moses, but directly from the Lord Himself. The words of the law are the words of God. This is an important doctrinal truth. However, I do not know what Bible reference to give you for this verse. It occurs with these exact seven words a total of 72 times in the Bible. 72 is 6 times 12 (6 being the number of man and 12 the number of Israel). Perhaps this indicates that God used Israel to bring His words to man.
