Passover to Pentecost – Passover Number Two        Week 2 Day 4

Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.  Exodus 40: 34 (NIV)

This may help with the timetable of events if you remember that Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers are really one long story.  The first part of Numbers is out of sequence because it starts with the second month of the second year and then in Chapter 7 it goes back to the first month. (This was done to determine marching order and camp placement so that the offerings for the Tabernacle would make sense.)  If the legend is correct and Israel made it to Mount Sinai in fifty days, Moses spent forty days with God before the golden calf episode in Exodus 32 and then another forty days after that.  That puts them at more than 130 days out of Egypt.  Exodus 40 is the first day of the first month of the second year; that gives an idea of how long it took to make everything God showed Moses.

Leviticus has a lot of action in it, but it is set between the laws and rules that have been given.  The ordination of Aaron and his sons is an important part of the Book and is a little hard to place timewise.  It probably happened between Exodus 40 and Numbers 7, in which case that was a busy fourteen day period leading up to the second Passover.  There had to be seven days for the ordination of Aaron’s family and twelve days to dedicate the Tabernacle.  The tent that Moses and Joshua used to meet with God, which was set up outside the camp, was also called the “tent of meeting.”  The context of the scriptures really does point to a very busy fourteen days.  God may have been doing a little cleaning out the “yeast” in Aaron’s family before Passover.

After Passover, during the time of the Counting of the Omer Moses took a census (Numbers 1) and by the 20^th day of the second month, they were moving again towards the Promise Land.  Like the first time, there was a three day journey and the people started complaining (Numbers 10: 33 to 11:3).  Timestamps are missing but in Numbers 11:24 is a perfect place to put the Day of Pentecost because the Lord poured His Spirit out on the seventy elders.  The next real-time stamp is Numbers 20 and the death of Miriam; this is the first month of the 40^th year.

An important date was set in Numbers 9: 9 and that is the “Second Passover.”  God does want certain things to remembered and celebrated.  He made an allowance for people who were unclean to have time to rejoice and remember His mighty works.  (More on this on May 10^th.)