Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / June 9, 2026 - Numbers 20 & Psalm 119:57-64

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June 9, 2026 - Numbers 20 & Psalm 119:57-64 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, with God's word lighting the way.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, lead pastor of Compass South Valley.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers 20.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zen in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh, and Miriam died there and was buried there.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the people quarreled with Moses and said, Would that we have perished when our brothers perished before the Lord?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness that we should die here, both we and our cattle?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the glory of the Lord appeared to them.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you shall bring water out of the rock for them, and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he had commanded him.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank and their livestock.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring their assembly into the land that I have given them.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thus says your brother Israel, you know all the hardships that we have met, how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Please let us pass through your land.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: We will not pass through field or vineyard or drink water from a well.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: We will go along the king's highway.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But Edom said to him, You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel said to him, We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, You shall not pass through.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through its territory.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Israel turned away from him.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they journeyed from Kadesh, and the people of Israel, the whole congregation, came to Mount Hoor.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hoor, on the border of the land of Edom, let Aaron be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land that I have given to the people of Israel, because you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now take Aaron and Eliezer his son, and bring them up to Mount Hoor, and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eliazar his son.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Aaron shall be gathered to his people and shall die there.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Moses did as the Lord commanded, and they went up Mount Hoar in the sight of all the congregation.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eliazar his son.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Aaron died there on the top of the mountain.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then Moses and Eliezer came down from the mountain.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: When all the congregation saw that Aaron had perished, all the house of Israel wept for thirty days.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 57 through 64.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my portion.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I promise to keep your words.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I entreat your favor with all my heart.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Be gracious to me according to your promise.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: At midnight I rise to praise you because of your righteous rules.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Teach me your statutes.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers twenty is another famous chapter from the book of Numbers.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are a few things that happen in Numbers that perhaps are more well known in the church broadly speaking than others.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Numbers 20 is one of those more well-known occasions where Moses is told explicitly by God to take his staff and to speak to the rock so that God could provide for water in the midst of the wilderness.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, as we read in Numbers 20, Moses decides to disobey.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's thinking back to his days in Egypt when his staff was very prominent in a lot of the miracles that were taking place, even in the Nile River, if you can think back to that, or turning it into a snake in front of the sorcerers that were working for Pharaoh.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever the case may be, he is stuck in unbelief in this moment.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but see the connection between the grumbling of Israel.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is not, this is another occasion.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like here we go again.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're back at it, grumble after grumble, complaining after complaining.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, all the way back, uh, even in Numbers 14, we've got Korah's Rebellion, we've got lots of things that have happened, and yet they're still given over to grumbling.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it just is an ironclad case of unbelief and hardened hearts.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a sense in which we see the hardened hearts of the congregation of Israel seem to be having sort of an atrophying, is that a word, atropying the effect on Moses and Aaron.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like they're being worn down.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, I'm not saying that uh the congregation of Israel are uh responsible for Moses' actions and unbelief.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: But certainly, if if even if we think about biblical counseling terms, a lot of times we'll we'll talk about heat, the heat of life.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those are persecutions, sufferings, difficult circumstances, uh, broken relationships, the heat of life that can sometimes uh harden our hearts, lead us towards, tempt us towards sin.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the sin is ours.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: We are responsible for it, but there are certainly things that can contribute and maybe fan into flame uh already existing roots of sin in our hearts.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see kind of that reality here in Numbers 20, where uh perhaps just Moses and Aaron are are weary after leading a grumbling people for uh a long time now.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this sense of just the heat, if you will, of the congregation complaining yet again.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses is given over in his own sin, of course, to unbelief.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, him and Aaron are barred from the promised land.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: They've been leading the people there.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: They have been wandering the wilderness, or at this point, been uh circumnavigating, if you will, the wilderness to get to Canaan.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but because of their unbelief, they will not make it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's really a tragic story, and it becomes another clarion call to believe, to cling to the promises of God.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why it's such a great example, uh, such a great warning that the author of Hebrews, of course, uses it for his own purposes, uh, where he says, You don't want to be like them.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be like Moses, you don't want to be like Aaron, you don't want to be like the wilderness generation that wanders for 40 years because of their hard hearts and their unbelief.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's again what we see here in Numbers 20.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So after years, it seems, of faithful service to the Lord, of doing what God commanded.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Moses in his hardened heart, uh, in his unbelief, disobeys and God uh has justice.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's a righteous sort of retribution, and he even connects Moses' actions to a lack of showcasing the holiness of God to the congregation.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, uh, this is verse 12 Because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's divine judgment and there is a reckoning.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: But even in the midst of judgment, we see woven within that divine mercy.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because of course, even though Moses disobeyed God in his grace and his mercy, still allowed water to flow from the rock.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so God continues to provide for a stubborn people, for a rebellious people.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so his steadfast love, his long-suffering is on full display here in Numbers 20.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we can kind of even see a shift, a changing of the guard.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Miriam has passed away, Aaron has passed away, Moses has been barred from the promised land, and he will shortly pass away as well.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a changing of the leadership of Israel that's happening.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Eliezer has now become the great high priest.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have, of course, Aaron, as I mentioned, he has passed away.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is is is shortly going to uh ultimately die, and that's gonna happen more towards the end uh of Numbers.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we see a changing of the guard, and we're we've got this sense of maybe hopeful expectation that the next generation will be more faithful, the next generation will learn their lessons and will believe and cling to the promises of God.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's the way that the narrative is sort of shaping up.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hope that's building, that's the tension that's rising.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to see is that the people would make it into Canaan, led by Joshua, and that they would believe, that they would trust in uh the Lord.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll keep reading it and see ultimately uh what happens there.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we continue to study Psalm 119, we are in verses 57 through 64 today.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this phrase has appeared several times already in Psalm 119, the Lord is my portion.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I was talking to Tyler about this the other day.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Reading so slowly, I shouldn't say so slowly, but one chapter a day in Leviticus has really in a lot of ways changed the way that I read other portions of the Old Testament now.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Lord is my portion.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, where does that language, if we're thinking about Leviticus specifically, where does that language sort of come from?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Where do we first sort of hear that?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we hear that in connection to the Levites who don't have an allotment of land, who don't have jobs outside of their tabernacle service, and God says, I will be your portion.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so this this makes me think of just a full-orbed trust in the Lord for his protection and his provision.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I can't help but think about Leviticus because I just we just read it not too long ago.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my portion.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, the tribe of Levi, they were fully dependent on the Lord for everything, for their food, for their clothing, for protection.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they again weren't out there, you know, they weren't tent makers, they they they weren't craftsmen, uh, they were in full service to the Lord and fully dependent on him.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord was their portion, he was their allotted portion, if you will.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see that sort of echoed here in this psalm.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my portion.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's this idea of fully clinging to God.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love how even the second part of the verse says, I promise to keep your words.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 58, I entreat, that's a great word that we don't use very often.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I entreat your favor with all my heart.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Entreat, uh, at least in the English, is to ask someone earnestly, urgently, or emotionally to do something.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the psalmist here is saying, I'm urgently asking, Lord, for your favorite portion.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking for your favor with all my heart.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Be gracious to me according to your promise.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And now the word favor in the Hebrew can can be translated in a variety of different ways, but the two primary translations are presence and or face.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of think of the phrase, may his face shine upon you.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or a presence.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you do a word study of favor, you're actually going to see a lot of action.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: God doing something, God providing for uh someone.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that's the idea.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm urging you, God, to turn your face towards me, uh, both in the sense of your favor, his provision, but also just his presence.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I entreat your favor with all my heart, be gracious to me according to your promise.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just again I'm I'm being struck as I read this.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my portion.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: So often, my heart, my soul longs for so many things in this world.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those things are good, sometimes those things are not as good.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I want to grow in saying that the Lord is my portion.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a parallel way to say that is I'm content.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of the words of Paul in Philippians 4.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned to be content with a lot or a little, because I recognize that God will richly supply for every one of my needs in Christ Jesus.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to grow in this.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to say with sincerity, not just lip service, but from a genuine place, the Lord is my portion.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I entreat your favor, Lord, with all my heart.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Be gracious to me according to your promise.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: So again, we we see an appeal to the promise of God, a clinging to the words of God and an urging, a pleading with the Lord to for graciousness, be gracious to me according to your promise.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, some great lessons for us here in Numbers 20 and in Psalm 119.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that that's an encouragement for you today.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible sv dot org.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.