Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Numbers 21:14 ever so briefly mentions another little writing called The Book of the Wars of the Lord. This book has never been found (bummer), but scholars guess that it was probably a collection of poems and songs celebrating all kinds of military victories. Bloodshed really brought out Israel's artistic side.
The Hebrew word for "Satan" literally means "adversary." In Numbers 22:22, the verse says "the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as [Balaam's] adversary." In other words, that angel is acting a bit like his name is Lucifer. Hmm…
The word amen occurs for the first time in the entire Bible in Numbers 5:22 as part of the Ordeal of the Water (the woman suspected of adultery is supposed to say it after she's cursed). She might want to utter a few more holy words while she's at it.
Joshua and Jesus are both majorly important biblical figure, but also have something else in common—their names. The Hebrew version of both their names is Yeshua, which means "he saves." (Whoa, their moms must have been psychic.) Yeshua, son of Nun, became Joshua, while Yeshua, son of Joseph, became Jesus in the Greek-speaking world. Somehow, we think they'd both be cool with the nickname Josh.
Sure, the Promised Land might be the home that God gave to his chosen people, but it's also the name Oprah gave her gigantic $52 million mansion in California. For that kind of money, we're guessing at least one of the faucets in her fourteen bathrooms flows with milk and honey.