Welcome back to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace. This is Shelby and Scott, and today

we're in numbers four through six. Scott, one thing I find challenging about numbers, other than

just like the lists in it is actually pronouncing the names. Because even when I'm reading

silently, I'm pronouncing them in my head. So we have some names to stumble over today. We have

Levites. We have Coethites. We have Mara rights. We think we're pronouncing that right. We looked

it up beforehand. So yeah, we checked it. So can you help us understand these chapters that contain all these really challenging

names, 4 through 6? Yeah, these chapters, and really going back to chapter 3, are all about the

Levites. And those groups you mentioned, like the Coethites, the Maraerites, they're all

Levites, just branches within the Levites. And to appreciate the Levites' role, I thought it would be helpful to read

Leviticus 26, 11, and 12, where God says, I will place my residence among you and I will not

reject you. So he's talking about the tabernacle there. And he says, I'll walk among you and be your God,

and you will be my people. And that language of God walking among them is actually the same language used in Genesis

3 of God walking under the garden with Adam and Eve.

And there's actually a lot of parallels we can't get into between the Garden of Eden and the

tabernacle.

But essentially, Israelites are, as they're traveling to the promised land, they've got like

this kind of miniature garden of Eden going with

them. And this is the first time since Eden that God has taken up residence among his people.

Now, of course, there's still danger because the Israelites are sinners. So there's an inherent

danger of them dwelling close to a holy God. But that's where the Levites come in. Like the Levites helped

to mediate God's presence to sinful people by offering sacrifices, by helping keep the camp

pure. And that's what chapter 5 and 6, which you read about today are covering. And so, you know,

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