Things to Ponder

Things to ponder.  We know that Moses and the Israelites wondered in the wilderness for 40 years.  We also know that God lead them (cloud by day and fire by night) each time they were to move.  We also know that after God gave the instructions for the tabernacle, that with each move, the tabernacle had to be taken down and then erected at the next campsite.  While I have not studied this out, in Numbers 33, we are given an outline of the wilderness travels.  If you were to count each site, beginning with Ramses (v.5) and ending with the Acacia Meadow in the plains of Moab, there would be 42 sites.  It would be at site 12 that they would have received the instructions for the tabernacle and built it (v.15).  This means they would have had to tear down and put up the tabernacle 30 times.  To me, it is just interesting to ponder some of these things.  Forty years in the wilderness with forty-two stops (41 if you don’t count Ramses which is when they left Egypt).  The average would be to stay at a given site for a year.  This was likely not the case, but just thinking of averages.  The taking down and putting up of the tabernacle must have been quite the job, but to thinking about it possibly being done 30 times is, again, just something to ponder.