March 2: Numbers 11:1 – Numbers 13:33

The People Complain – Numbers 11

• The Hebrew people complain, and God hears them. His anger is kindled, and the fire of the Lord burns among them and consumes some of the outlying parts of the camp. The people appeal to Moses, and he prays to God. The fires then die down.
• The people again complain, this time that they want meat, fruits, and vegetables to eat (instead of the manna they are always given).
• Moses hears the people weeping at the doors of their tents. The anger of the Lord blazes hotly, and Moses is displeased. He asks God why he has not found favor with Him and gives an account of everything he had done as instructed. Moses begs God for meat for the people, claiming he cannot bear the burden he has been given alone.

Elders Appointed to Aid Moses

• God tells Moses to gather for Him seventy of the elders of Israel and bring them to the tent of meeting, and He will come down and talk with them there. God tells Moses that He will take some of the Spirit placed on Moses and place it on the elders. Moses is then to tell the people to consecrate themselves, for tomorrow they will eat meat. They will have meat for a month, until they are tired of it, because they have rejected the Lord.
• Moses does as instructed. The Lord comes down in a cloud and rests upon the seventy elders, and they prophesy, but they do not continue doing it.
• The Spirit rests on Eldad and Medad, who are still in the camp. They prophesy in the camp, and a man comes to the tent of meeting to tell Moses. Joshua tells Moses to stop them, but Moses refuses, saying he wishes all the men would receive the Spirit of the Lord. Moses then returns to the camp.

Quail and a Plague

• A wind blows in, bringing quail  from the sea. The people gather the quail for a day and a half and spread it for themselves all around the camp. Because of their greed, God's anger is kindled, and He strikes the people with a plague. The people then journey on to Hazeroth.

Miriam and Aaron Oppose Moses – Numbers 12

• Moses has married a Cushite woman, and Miriam and Aaron speak against him. The Lord hears their complaints, and calls Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to the tent of meeting. There, He comes down as a pillar of cloud, stands at the entrance, and calls Aaron and Miriam to Himself. He points out that He trusts Moses completely and questions why they weren't afraid to criticize Moses, then leaves.
• When the cloud removes from over the tent, Miriam is leprous. When Aaron sees this, he apologizes and begs Moses to ask God to heal her. Moses does so, but God tells him that she should be shamed for seven days. So she is put out of the camp for seven days, and the people don't march until she is brought back into the camp. They then set out for the wilderness of Paran.

Spies Sent into Canaan – Numbers 13

• God tells Moses to send spies into the land of Canaan—twelve men, one from each tribe. The spies are:
1. Shammua, from the tribe of Reuben
2. Shaphat, from the tribe of Simeon
3. Caleb, from the tribe of Judah
4. Igal, from the tribe of Issachar
5. Hoshea (Joshua), from the tribe of Ephraim
6. Palti from the tribe of Benjamin
7. Gaddiel, from the tribe of Zebulun
8. Gaddi, from the tribe of Mannaseh
9. Ammiel, from the tribe of Dan
10. Sethur, from the tribe of Asher
11. Nahbi, from the tribe of Naphtali
12. Geuel, from the tribe of Gad
• Moses sends the men into the Negeb to get an overview of the land and its people and fruits. The men spy the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, then into the Negeb. In the Valley of Eschol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes and carry it on a pole. They also gather figs and pomegranates. 

Report of the Spies

• After forty days, the spies returned to Moses in the wilderness of Paran. They bring word to the Hebrew people that the land "flows with milk and honey, and with this fruit," but that the people who dwell there (the Nephilim, Hittites, Jebusites, Amalekites, Amorites, and Canaanites) are strong and the cities are large and fortified.
• Caleb quiets the people and insists that they should go and occupy the land, because they are well able to overcome it. The other spies (aside from Joshua) insist that they would not be able to overcome the inhabitants there.

January 4: Genesis 11:1 – Genesis 14:24 & 1 Chronicles 1:24–27

The Tower of Babel – Genesis 11

• The whole earth has one language. The people journey east and find a plain in the land of Shinar (ancient Babylon, in Mesopotamia), where they settle. 
• Using baked bricks and mortar, the people set out to build a city, and a tower that reaches into the heavens. (They want to become as famous as the Nephilim were before the Great Flood, and make a name for themselves.)
• God "came down to see" (omniscience) what they were doing, and sees their potential to become as willfully sinful as people were before the Flood. He will not allow this to happen.
• God confuses their language, scattering them abroad. (This is the beginning of variation in language, culture, values, and clans—caused by human arrogance.) The scattering is God's third great judgment on the people (the first being the expulsion from Eden and the second being the Great Flood). 
• The tower is called Babel. In Hebrew, the word for confuse (in verb form) sounds similar to the name of the city.

Shem's Descendants – Genesis 11:10–26 & 1 Chronicles 1:24–27

• The genealogy of Shem, the progenitor of the Hebrew people, is given, from Shem to Terah, who was the father of Abram (later Abraham), Nahor, and Haran.

Terah's Descendants

• Terah's son Haran dies, leaving a son named Lot. Abram and Nahor take wives (Sarai and Milcah, respectively). Sarai is barren.
• Terah takes Abram, Lot, and Sarai, and they leave Ur of the Chaldeans and go to Canaan, to a place called Haran, where Terah dies.

Promises to Abram – Genesis 12

• God tells Abram to take his family to the land God will show him, and that He will make Abram a great nation.
• Abram obeys, leaving Haran with Sarai, Lot, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and traveled to Shechem, also in Canaan. There, God tells Abram that He will give this land (which belongs to the Canaanites) to Abram's descendants, and Abram builds an altar to the Lord.
• Abram then moves to the mountains east of Bethel and pitches his tent between Bethel and Ai, where he builds another altar and calls on the name of the Lord.
• Abram then journeys again, heading south.

Abram in Egypt

• There was a famine in the land, so Abram takes his family south to Egypt. 
• As the family is entering Egypt, Abram tells Sarai to tell anyone who asks, that she is his sister. He fears that because she is beautiful, if she tells people that she is his wife, the people will try to kill him. (Sarai is actually Abram's half-sister, as they shared the same father.)
• In Egypt, Sarai is taken by the Pharaoh's princes into the house of Pharaoh, where she becomes a wife of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh treats Abram well for Sarai's sake (he is given servants and livestock).
• God plagues Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai (the first example of the cursing and blessing element of God's promise, found in verses 2 and 3 of the chapter).
• Angry, Pharaoh sends Abram and Sarai away with all they own.

Abram Inherits Canaan – Genesis 13

• Abram and his family return to the place where he pitched his tent between Bethel and Ai. There, he calls upon the name of the Lord again.
• Lot also goes with them, and the land is not able to house all of them, as their possessions are so great that they can't live together. There is strife between the herdsmen of the Lot and the herdsmen of Abram, so the two men decide to separate so there will be no more problems between them. Lot chooses the land of Jordan, to the east (his choice of the more favorable land leads him into territory populated by the worst of the Canaanites—the men of Sodom), while Abram chooses the land of Canaan.
• Lot pitches his tent as far as Sodom, where the men are "exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord." (Gen. 13:13)
• The Lord tells Abram to look all around him, and that all the land Abram can see will be given to him and his descendants forever. (This is God's reaffirmation of His promise to Abram after Abram's lack of faith in Egypt and his separation from Lot.) He also tells Abram He will make his descendants as the dust of the earth (innumerable), and tells Abram to move about through his land (a symbolic act of taking possession).
• Abram moves his tent, dwelling by the terebinth trees of Mamre (in Hebron), where he builds another altar to the Lord.

Lot's Captivity and Rescue – Genesis 14

• War breaks out in Jordan, where Lot is living. Lot and his family, along with the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, are captured. An escapee flees to Abram and tells him what has happened.
• Abram arms his three hundred eighteen trained servants, and together they attack the city of Sodom in the night. Abram brings back all the goods, as well as Lot and his family and all their belongings.
• The king of Sodom meets Abram in the Valley of Shaveh after Abram's return from victory. 

Abram and Melchizedek

• Melchizedek, king of Salem (later Jerusalem) meets with Abram. (Melchizedek is a priest of the Most High God and worshiped the living God.) He then blesses Abram.
• The king of Sodom tells Abram to give him his people but to keep the goods. Abram refuses, saying he will not take anything that belongs to the king (this is his rebuke of Sodom and its king, which is in contrast to Lot, who moved into the wicked city), lest the king say that he made Abram rich.