Synopses & Reviews
A new understanding of Israel's wandering. 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 this new book Won Lee brings clarity to this important section of Scripture by properly fitting the text into Number's overarching theology. According to Lee, the major divisions and thirty-six subunits that comprise 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 of Israelites in defeating the Canannites. By treating the structure of the text as the central problem in its interpretation and presenting a proposal grounded in solid exegesis, Won demonstrates that despite the diverse, disparate material found in Numbers is in fact a self-contained, well-organized, and coherent unit with an important theological message.