….This principle here is like the OT equivalent of Matthew 6:33, “seek first the kingdom of God.” And this is it, for those who live in between the promise and the possession. “Live with your life ordered around the presence of the Lord.” Meaning, God wants us to relate to him in a genuine, relational way, experiencing his presence, and to order our lives around him.
Let’s see how this plays out.
If we go back to Numbers 1:1, we read this.
Numbers 1:1 The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying…
The LORD put his presence in the tent of meeting, or tabernacle, and then spoke out of the tent of meeting in order to set forth his commands. The tent of meeting can’t contain the LORD because as the LORD says to Isaiah, heaven is but his throne and the earth a footstool. But, somehow, the LORD’s manifest presence dwelled in the tent of meeting. It wasn’t all the LORD, like I am all “here,” since he’s still “out there,” but it was the presence of the LORD. He was truly, wholly present among his people is a particular way.
So the LORD did not want his people to relate to him like a far off “god” who wasn’t interested in their lives. God wanted to relate to his people, personally, deeply, relationally. And from within this relationship, he gave his commands. This is an important connection to understand. The LORD spoke from the tent of meeting, like someone close. Like a father, like a shepherd, with affection, he spoke. Not like a distant manager calling from another state, who doesn’t know you, telling you how to do your job.
And then the LORD spoke again, in the first verse of this chapter. And he commanded that the tribes camp around the tent of meeting, with their tents facing the tent of meeting, signifying that the people should relate to God, “face-to-face,” so to speak, looking toward God, centered on God. Every tribe was organized around the tent of meeting in a square.
And I’ll come back to this ordered arrangement for some other observations but simply notice that all Israel was ordered around the presence of the Lord with the purpose that every tribe and all the people were to arrange their lives around God. Everything they did was ordered around the presence of the Lord. Meaning, how they went about daily life and how they conducted their overall affairs was to be done in consideration that the LORD was in their midst and that they were ordered around the presence of the LORD…
