Mountains in the Book of Numbers
In today’s exploration of what religious texts say about mountains and hills, I am looking at the fourth book in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible: Numbers.
The Book of Numbers details the Israelites’s forty-year journey from Mount Sinai to the frontier of the promised land. It gives an account of two generations in three major sections. The first section in Numbers deals with the Israelite camp at Mount Sinai, the second accounts for their journey through the wilderness, and the third details their experiences on the Plains of Moab before entering the promised land. The Israelites’s actual conquest of Canaan — the promised land — isn’t detailed until later, in the Book of Joshua.
War Drums
The Book of Numbers begins from the context of conquest and war. It opens on the camp of Mount Sinai, where god commands the Israelites to take a census of all men who are eligible for combat. The Levites are “servants” of god, responsible for temple service and ritualistic duties, and therefore are exempt from military service. Eligible men from all tribes are conscripted to fight.
Despite god promising the land to the Israelites, the promised land must be seized from those who occupy it.
Clouds at the Peak of the Tabernacle
Before the Israelites can conquer Canaan, they must travel there from Sinai. The Book of Numbers gives an account of that journey.
In my notes on Exodus, I made the argument that the Tabernacle was a manufactured mountain, the mobile-mountain-home for god to dwell amongst the Israelites. Imagery suggesting this interpretation continues to appear in the Book of Numbers, where clouds gather at the top of the Tabernacle as they might at the summit of a mountain, signifying the divine presence. “It was always so: the cloud covered it by day.”1
The Book of Numbers also restates the relationship of the god-cloud over the Tabernacle to the movement of the Israelites. Whenever the cloud disappears over the Tabernacle, the Israelites will march through the wilderness to the promised land. When the god-cloud appears over the Tabernacle, the Israelites will remain put in camp.
The Center or the Leader?
There is some confusion whether the Tabernacle remains at the center of the camp or leads the march.
One account notes that the tribes of Israel surround the Tabernacle, keeping it at the center during their march out of Sinai and through the wilderness.2 Another account notes that, while the Tabernacle sits at the center of camp,3 the Ark of the Covenant is said to lead the march.4
This confusing detail can be chalked up to the Priestly and non-Priestly accounts of the Israelites’ departure from Sinai.
The two accounts also describe Sinai differently: whereas the Priestly account calls area of the camp “the wilderness of Sinai,” the non-Priestly account calls it the “mount of the LORD.” These two are not contradictions. They are synonyms. Similar phrases are used within the Priestly account itself, notably Numbers 3:1 and Numbers 3:14, which describe god speaking to Moses “on Mount Sinai” and “in the wilderness of Sinai” respectively.
Providing Quails
The abundance trope reappears in the Book of Numbers. At one point during their march out of Sinai, the Israelites complain about being hungry for meat. Moses appeals to god, who provides quails for them to eat. El Shaddai, the god of the mountain, provides well beyond the slopes themselves.
Scouting the Promised Land
As they approach the promised land, god tells Moses to send one scout from each of the twelve tribes to spy on the “hill country” of Canaan with the objective to survey the land and determine the strength of the Canaanites. Moses tells the scouts:
Go up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, and whether the land they live in is good or bad.5
After forty days, the spies return to camp with some fruit they stole from Canaan as evidence of the promised land’s abundance. They report:
We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruits. Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large.6
The Israelites reconsider seizing the promised land because of the reports of the Canaanites having a sizable, strong population. God takes insult to this. Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, try to quell the uprising, saying that god will be on their side, with limited success. Now angry, god curses the insurrectionists, saying that none of them will ever see the promised land and that they will suffer.7 Upon hearing this, some of the insurrectionists backtrack on their rebellion against god and go “up to the heights of the hill country” where they are defeated by the Canaanites.8
Mount Hor and Priestly Authority
The authority of the priesthood is conferred on mountains.
En route to the promised land, god tells Moses to bring Aaron and Aaron’s son Eleazar to the top of Mount Hor. There, Moses strips Aaron of his holy vestments and put them on Eleazar. Aaron dies on the mountain and Eleazar becomes the second high priest.9
Balak, Balaam, and Oracles on Mountains
The story of Balak and Balaam reveals that even the non-Israelite notion of worship involves mountain altars and deities, suggesting the importance of mountains in the religious culture of the region.
When noticing the approaching Israelites, the Moabite King Balak asks the diviner Balaam to curse the Israelites.
Balak first takes Balaam to Bamoth-baal, a high place in the land of Moab, where he builds altars and performs sacrifices in preparation for the oracle. It should be noted here that Bamoth in Hebrew means “high place.” Baal, of course, is the name of a Semitic sky/storm/fertility god and is associated with false gods in the Old Testament. Instead of Baal speaking through Balaam on Bamoth-baal to curse the Israelites, the god of the Israelites speaks through Balaam and blesses the Israelites.
The unexpected blessing leads Balak to the top of another mountain, Mount Pisgah, where he constructs a similar altar and prepares similar sacrifices. The outcome too is similar: a blessing comes out of Balaam’s mouth instead of a curse.
Balak tries one more time, this time at the top of Mount Peor. Numbers mentions “Baal of Poer,” the Canaanite god worshiped at this location.10 The setup and the outcome are the same at the top of Mount Peor as it was at the top of the two previous locations. However, Balaam directly mentions El Shaddai in his two blessings at the top of Mount Peor.
Israelite Syncretism
Worshipping gods on mountains was a widespread phenomenon in ancient Levantine culture, so much so that a new god like El Shaddai — if we can indeed describe him as being “newer” than the older, pre-existing Mesopotamian or Canaanite gods like Baal — of course would have been worshipped in similar fashion.
It is generally accepted among scholars that the Israelites unwittingly absorbed or actively integrated elements of other religions into their beliefs.
The Plains of Moab
At the end of the Book of Numbers, the Israelites are on the Plains of Moab next to the River Jordan and across from Jericho.11 It is here, before the Israelites can enter the promised land, that god tells them that they will divide the land proportionally among the tribes according to their sizes.
It is also here where Moses lays out his succession plan. From the Plains of Moab, Moses tells Joshua to climb a mountain in the Abarim Range to survey the promised land.12 After Joshua does so, Moses and the new high priest Eleazar recognize Joshua’s authority. Remember: authority is conferred upon mountains.
Mount Nebo is sometimes associated with the site of Joshua’s commission, though the mountain is not specifically mentioned in Numbers. It is mentioned in Deuteronomy, where it is identified as being part of the Abarim range and from where Moses saw a glimpse of the promised land before his death.
It should be noted here that, in the commissioning of Joshua, Eleazar uses Urim as an oracle or an object of divination to determine god’s judgements.13 The Urim and Thummim are objects that are set into the breastplate of the priest. Because they are set alongside twelve gemstones representing the twelve tribes, the Urim and Thummim are believed to be stones or jewels of some kind. In Hebrew, Urim means something like “light,” here taken to mean “enlightenment” or “revelation.” God speaks through them.
Mapping the Promised Land
After defeating the Midianite nation, the Reubenites and the Gadites ask Moses to settle in the land east of the River Jordan and outside the promised land.14 They promise to fight alongside the other tribes, who will secure land west of the River Jordan, but they will stay east of it in the hill country of Gilead.
The promised land is mapped in the Book of Numbers, its borders detailed as being the land between the Mediterranean Sea and west of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. It extends south until the Wadi of Egypt and to the north east of the Sea of Chinnereth (Galilee).
And this is where the Book of Numbers ends, with the Israelites about to invade the hill country of Canaan.