The Gist - Read the Bible, like, Really Quick

God told Moses he was gonna give the land of Canaan to the Israelites. "Y'all should explore it," continued the LAWD.  "Send a leader from each of the twelve tribes." So Moses sent out twelve dudes to explore Canaan.  They all had names and fathers, and if you're interested in that, grab yourself a Reg'lar Ol' Bible and check out verses 4-16.  ...Or just...  here: One of these dudes had a dad basically named Suzie.  Let's all go back in time and give Gaddi a wedgie, shall we?  For really, really old time's sake? Moses instructed the explorers to check out the land and find strenghts and weaknesses of the people there, how many there were, what their towns were like, whether they were fortified--the typical stuff you do when you have to assess whether or not the currently-occupied land God gave you was good enough for you or if it was a fixer-upper. This kind of thing would resurface now and again throughout history. Image source:  htt

Moses married a Cushite and Aaron and Miriam weren't cool with this and started to doubt his authority. Taking a line right out of Weird Al's "Amish Paradise," it is noted in verse 3 of this chapter that Moses "was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." Seriously,  check it out .  Totally says it. The LAWD called all three of 'em out of the tent for the pre-Jesus equivalent of a come-to-Jesus meeting, which was a cloud column in front of the tent yelling at Aaron and Miriam. "I hereby call a Come-to-Cumulus meeting to order.  Y'all done screwed up again." "When y'all have a prophet, I talk to him in dreams and visions.  But Moses is so righteous that I just flat-out talk to him face-to-face.  Dude knows me.  So y'all need to show some respect." God left and Miriam and Aaron were ashamed.  As a result of her doubting Moses's authority, Miriam developed leprosy, so Aaron aske

Some of the people started complaining about how hard their lives were, so God whipped some fire around their camp and killed off a few of them in the outskirts in his rage. The remaining people begged Moses to do something to stop the smite-fire and so he prayed and God relented. "Have some perspective.  Yeah, things are hard, but you could be ON FIRE!!!" The non-Israelites among them started getting homesick for Egypt, which made the Israelites recall the awesome food they had to eat in Egypt and how they're getting a little bored with this "manna" stuff. Manna, manna, manna, manna, manna, manna, manna, manna, BATMANNNNN(A) Moses heard them whining and vented at God, who was getting pissed again.  "Why are you treating me like crap?  What did I ever do to you that I have to take on all these whining jerks?  I ain't they momma!  And now they want meat.  How am I supposed to get them meat?!*  If you're gonna keep treating me like this, jus

God told Moses to make two silver trumpets for calling the community together and setting out camp.  God and Moses worked out what the trumpet blast signals meant and explained it to the sons of Aaron, as they would be the ones using the trumpets. "Silver trumpets on bass drums.  So metal.  Yet  so not metal. " So anyway, they all left Sinai and set out for the Paran desert.  Moses talked to some dude named Hobab about staying with the Israelites, 'cause Hobab had some experience hangin' out in the wilderness and, so far, not dying, which is quite handy.

God told Moses to make sure the Israelites celebrate the Passover when it's time to celebrate the Passover and Moses told 'em that at Sinai, and they agreed to celebrate the Passover when it's time to celebrate the Passover. Some of them, though, weren't able to celebrate on the appointed Passover day because they were unclean (due to some spoilsport corpse).  Moses thought about it and said "lemme talk to the LAWD 'bout this corpse business." "Sorry 'bout the delay of celebration, guys." --corpses God said it's cool, that they can celebrate the Passover next month, presumably after much ritualistic bull-slaughtering and whatnot.  He went on to express his disdain for those who are ceremonially clean and can celebrate Passover when they're supposed to but don't celebrate it and told Moses that any foreigner living with the Israelites must also celebrate Passover whenever they can. A cloud appeared above the Tentmoot and staye

God told Moses to tell Aaron how to arrange the super-awesome golden lamps, and Aaron arranged the lamps correctly lest he end up like his crispified progeny from back in  Leviticus 10 . God then told Moses that the Levites needed to be ceremonially cleansed, which of course meant that they needed to shave their whole bodies, wash their clothes, and be sprinkled with water.  Then, of course, young bulls to the fire and all that, because the young bull supply somehow didn't run out in the last chapter. Fig. B's Levite still needs some slaughtered bulls, but at least the TAP-OUT shirt is gone, which is tremendously pleasing to the LORD. "Bring all the Israelites to the front of the Tentmoot," continued God, "and they'll all lay hands on the Levites.  Aaron will present the Levites to me and I'll give them some homework assignments from that point." "Is that it?  Normally there's more about cattle-slaughter and ripping pigeons apart by the