Numbers במדבר
The fourth book of the Torah: forty years in the desert, censuses, rebellions and the road to the Land's border.
Bamidbar opens with a census and the layout of the camp—twelve tribes around the Mishkan, each under its banner—and looks like a book about order. Order breaks down almost at once: complaints about the manna, "we remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing", the episode of Miriam, and then the spies.
Their report and the people's weeping cost Israel forty years and an entire generation. Then Korach's rebellion over who may serve; Miriam's death and the loss of the well; the striking of the rock that costs Moshe the Land; Aharon's death; the copper serpent; Balak and Bilam, whose curse becomes the blessing "how goodly are your tents, Yaakov", with which the morning prayer now opens.
The book ends with a second census, the daughters of Tzelofchad, the war with Midian and the division of Transjordan.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bamidbar 1–36 — the book itself: the censuses, the revolts, the road to the Land
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bamidbar Rabbah — the midrash on the book
- Taanit 29a — the night of the spies — a weeping for the generations
- Sifrei Bamidbar — the halakhic midrash on the book
Basis: tradition.