Deck 6: From Mount Sinai to the Promised Land: Numbers and Deuteronomy

Question 1

1. Describe the role of the priesthood in ancient Israel. What were their duties and responsibilities? What special rules of purity did they have to observe and why?

Answer 1

Priests officiated cultic activities in holy shrines (and eventually the temple in Jerusalem), especially sacrifices and offerings. Priests also had judicial or legal responsibilities. Unlike common people, priests were to remain in a constant state of ritual purity, avoiding the touching of corpses, and so on.

Question 2

2. What are some of the main events and themes of the book of Numbers? How does it fit in the larger context of the Torah?

Answer 2

Students should mention the Israel's fraught relationship with God, God's provision of food in the wilderness, the authority of Moses, Israel's refusal to obey YHWH and invade the land (which causes the forty years of wandering), Moses' disobedience, and the conquest of the Transjordan. Key themes include YHWH's faithfulness, Israel's unfaithfulness, and the importance of following the covenantal laws. The book provides the reason for Israel's lengthy wandering in the wilderness and serves as the bridge between Mt. Sinai and the conquest of the land in Joshua (though Deuteronomy stands between as Moses' final instructions).

Question 3

3. What is the historical context for the D source and the book of Deuteronomy?

Answer 3

Students should refer to the probable origins of the D source in the north before the fall of Samaria to Assyria in 722 BC.E. and then the reforms of Josiah, spurred by the "finding" of the Book of the Law in the Jerusalem temple in the late seventh century BC.E.

Question 4

4. What are the fundamental themes found in the Deuteronomic Code? How are the laws in this code different than those found in the other books of the Pentateuch? How did these laws influence the history of ancient Israel?

Question 5

1. Moses is the only surviving member of the Exodus generation to cross into Canaan.

Question 6

2. Moses disobeys God and in consequence cannot enter the Promised Land.

Question 7

3. According to Israelite law, women could never inherit land.

Question 8

5. The Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy are identical to those found in Exodus 20.

Question 9

9. Deuteronomy assumes the existence of the central sanctuary in Jerusalem.

Question 10

2) People from which tribe of Israel apparently ran religious services in cultic shrines other than Jerusalem until these were disallowed?

A) Levi
B) Benjamin
C) Reuben
D) Gad

Question 11

3) The "mountain of God" is referred to by which two names?

A) Moriah and Sinai
B) Sinai and Horeb
C) Moriah and Gerizim
D) Horeb and Ararat

Question 12

4) The king of Bashan was

A) Sihon.
B) Og.
C) Chemosh.
D) Phinehas.

Question 13

6) After her act of rebellion, Miriam is stricken with

A) blindness.
B) paralysis.
C) infertility.
D) a skin disease.

Question 14

7) Who hired Balaam to curse the Israelites?

A) Og
B) Sihon
C) Gideon
D) Balak

Question 15

8) How many spies did Moses send to see if Canaan could be entered from the south?

A) six
B) twelve
C) twenty
D) forty

Question 16

11) Numbers 6 discusses vows taken by

A) priests.
B) nazirites.
C) murderers.
D) Amalekites.

Question 17

12) Deuteronomy can be best described as a(n)

A) etiology.
B) poem.
C) speech.
D) genealogy.

Question 18

14) Deuteronomy 1-4:43 was probably influenced by

A) Assyrian hegemony.
B) exile in Babylon.
C) Hosea.
D) Jeremiah.

Question 19

20) According to Deuteronomy, Moses died at age

A) 80.
B) 120.
C) 180.
D) 200.

Question 20

21) Which of the following is not one of the Deuteronomic curses for disobedience?

A) fever and inflammation
B) exile
C) miscarriages
D) divorces