Numbers: yes, age is just a number – but sometimes that number matters!

Sometimes, numbers matter. Yes, age is just a number. But sometimes that number matters.

So I went to London this weekend with 3 friends to celebrate my birthday. My 50th birthday. But one of my friends thought we were celebrating my 51st (the moment we discovered this was the funniest of the whole weekend!) She may have acted and prepared differently if she had known it was my 50th – for example, she may NOT have agreed to do a ‘talky bit’ if she’d known it was to be in front of 22 of my friends and family at afternoon tea!  It’s not her fault. It was I who forgot to send her an invitation. And as she pointed out, I celebrate EVERY birthday as if it’s a big one! And it was fine. It added to the laughter of the weekend. All is forgiven, T!

Nowadays, we use photos as hooks and prompts for our memories. I am about to post the photos from the weekend on Facebook for everyone to enjoy. But back in the day, they used numbers as we use photos. As it says in ‘The Message of the Bible’ (Lion), for the Israelites, these statistics in the Book of Numbers were the equivalent of the family photograph album.  They served as a constant reminder that God had kept his promise to make Abraham’s descendants into a mighty nation.

Some of the numbers from my weekend away will not be of interest to you. You probably don’t want to know how much we spent on taxi fares or the number of my hotel room or how many hours sleep my friend Helen got. You probably would rather NOT know how many people we offended (or intrigued) by our conversations on the train. I probably can’t put a figure on the number of times Mandy said ‘Remember, it’s all about Helen this weekend!’

But you may be interested to know that the afternoon tea was served on 3-tiered cake stands; 4 people arrived late; my friend was there who is 3 days older than me; I hadn’t seen Rhona since we were 18; I got 5 beautiful and very different bracelets as gifts; my fabulous shoes are definitely NOT a size 5; and Mandy and I raced down the stairs of the hotel in our pjs to spend 10 minutes in the pool and steam room. Being 50 is wonderful. I raised £345 on JustGiving for Breast Cancer Care when I ran the Great North Run (and asked for donations to this instead of presents). I had a text exchange with my husband at 4:15am. I wore a dress of my mum’s which was older than me – we reckon 55 years old.

You see, numbers do help to paint a picture….

The Book of Numbers is called Numbers in the Greek because of the considerable attention to numbers in the book. The Hebrew name for the book literally means ‘in the wilderness’ which I guess is more apt, because that is where the book takes place. Moses is the central character of the book, although not the author. Oral and written source material were used to compile this book –  – several ancient poems, several pieces of ancient geography, pieces of historical information consistent with known events of 13th century BC. Conceived as an early historical epic,  this book is interwoven with later legislation and a priestly interpretation of the significance of the facts recorded which would enable Israel to understand more clearly her divine origin, call and destiny. In other words, the source material has been gathered and arranged to make certain theological issues clear.

Which is what would do if I wrote about my weekend away. I would include the stories reported about me in my earlier years that I do not even remember myself – like being terrified of thunder and grabbing Rhona’s hand in a vice-like grip in a French A Level lesson or calling out from my bed as a student when I woke up with frozen hair…… I would use statistics and quotes from cards and texts and Facebook messages. I would include photographs. I would put in a copy of the poem that Twanna read out. But it would all be gathered and selected and arranged to convey the blessed happiness that surrounded the whole event. Because the significance of the event is more important than the exact nature of events.

I too would want my account to convey God’s truth. The truth that God has been with me throughout my whole life, sending wonderful women to walk with me for a season. God has met my every need. He has blessed me with wonderful friends and family and I am overflowing with joy right now. He has kept his promises.

So because the Book of Numbers was compiled and edited some 200 years after the events, there are some special problems raised. There is a special usage of thousand and hundred which do not mean thousand and hundred – but we do not know what they do mean. There are a variety of mathematical solutions around if you’re interested. The details about offerings and festivals are different from previous books – one answer for this is that there had been modifications over the years and these details were based on contemporary facts rather than the original facts (although essentially true nevertheless). [from The New Bible Commentary Revised (IVP)]

I was accompanied throughout this whole weekend by three close friends. If each of us wrote an account of the weekend, it would be completely different, but essentially true nevertheless.

Hopefully this understanding will help us as we dive into the Book of Numbers.

Now it’s time to upload the photos!