The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Introduction to Desert Wanderings (with Jeff Cavins) (2025)
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Congratulations, you've completed the Egypt & Exodus period and you've arrived at the Desert Wanderings ! Jeff Cavins joins Fr. Mike to provide us the context for the book of Numbers and the book of Deuteronomy. They discuss how this period is marked by Israel's rebellion against God as they wander in the desert for forty years striving to regain their narrative and identity. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Chapter 1: What is the purpose of the Desert Wanderings period?
Hi, I'm Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit together.
into that story today. Today, I'm joined by Jeff Cavins once again to introduce the fourth biblical period of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. You know, we've gone through the other timeline periods. We've looked at the early world. We looked at the patriarchs. We just finished Egypt and the Exodus, and now we're in the fourth biblical period called Desert Wanderings.
Before we begin, a couple of reminders. One is the Bible translation that I'm using Always is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to have your own Catholic Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year.
And lastly, if you have not yet subscribed, you can subscribe in your podcast app. So not only do you get that downloaded to your phone or at least alerted on your phone every single day, but also more people can learn about this podcast the more people subscribe. So with all that being said, let's get started.
Once again, Jeff, thank you so much for being back with us again and teaching us about this next period of the desert wanderings. The books we're reading from are Numbers and Deuteronomy, and I'm just really excited to launch into this next biblical period.
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Chapter 2: How does the book of Numbers relate to the desert experience?
Yeah, it's exciting. Thanks for having me back again. Yeah, we're going to look at Numbers as the primary narrative book for the desert wanderings. And in the Bible timeline, it is the color, kind of a tan, standing for the desert, you know, the desert experience. And then the supplemental book is going to be Deuteronomy.
Awesome. Yeah, and so they're kind of overlapping a little bit, but in some ways they're really different. Is that safe to say? Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's safe. What else do you want to know? No, I'm kidding. That's all I wanted to note. It's kind of the same, but kind of different. That's all.
No, it is safe to say that Numbers is the narrative, but Deuteronomy is a second law. It's a second set of laws that are given due to the hardness of Israel's heart at this particular time. But it's chalk-filled with wonderful, wonderful guidance and wisdom for us.
And we can talk about that, particularly in the area of how do you live your life when you're going into a country where it is diametrically opposed to the message of God? Like that's ever going to happen, right? Yeah, that may be once in a while. So we're going to look at that.
But there's a number of very important things that take place in this relatively small period of salvation history, which is about 40 years.
Right. And those 40 years are covered by the narrative book in Numbers, which is interesting because one of the things that we find out, it's like, as you noted, the narrative book being Numbers is typically, I think, for a lot of people, the one where we don't lose the story, we are traveling with the people of Israel and with the covenant people of God.
And so that in some ways we look forward kind of maybe more eagerly to that narrative book, the book of Numbers. But at the same time, as you noted, the book of Deuteronomy has so many powerful words of encouragement, words of law, words of just direction from the Lord.
That can immediately be applied to our life, as well as the fact that numbers can sometimes, well, even the fact that it's called the book of numbers might mean that some sections might be a little bit hard to get through because they're not going to be so much narrative as much as it's going to be counting or giving off a list of names of people that we might not be familiar with.
What do people do with that?
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the spies' mission in Numbers?
But now they're going to make their way back into the promised land, but there's going to be a test, and you know there's tests all along in salvation history. There was at the beginning, there is at the end, there's, well, there is in our own lives today. So the test is going to be, as they break camp in chapter 10, they're going to send spies up into the land, which is not very far.
And they stop at a place called Kadesh Barnea. And Kadesh Barnea comes from the word, Kadesh comes from Kadosh. Kadosh is holy, separated ones. And so... Kadesh Barnea, the city, acts as sort of a launching point where they're going to see if they are really the separate ones and they're going to trust God and go into the land or whether they're going to retreat.
Well, they send 12 spies up and they come back and they give their report. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb, said, we can take it. Ten of them said, there's no way. There's giants in the land. It's great fruit and everything else, don't get me wrong, but there's giants in the land. And so when they came back and gave their report, God said, so be it.
For every day that you are spying out the land, you will wander for a year in this wilderness. And so how many days do we think they were up in the land? Yeah, 40. So 40 years now, they're going to be wandering in the desert. And that's really the story of the book of Numbers and this period, which we recall the number 40 is a number of testing, like Lent. It is a number of testing.
It's a number of finding out who you really are. And we see it over and over in the Bible, and especially with Jesus, 40 days in the wilderness. So that's where we're at in the story right now. We broke camp in chapter 10 of Numbers, sent spies up north. They came back with no way, not going to happen. And that was chapter 13.
And then what happens after that is how the story then unfolds, right? As they're led into the wilderness, which is, What a lot of us associate with, I don't know, desert wanderings is that sense.
And as you noted, God's plan was that they would trust him and go into the, to take the land, not by their own power, but by trusting in him and by God's power that he would fulfill his promises that he had made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And yet the people...
I wonder so often that when it comes to here they are having been slaves for 400 years and maybe even given their hearts to other gods, that here they are not knowing how to trust God, not knowing the identity of God, not knowing the character of God, and not knowing exactly how to trust him. And that sounds like that desert wandering, so those 40 days
are testing, and also maybe, would you also say training? Because I like to say that, but I don't want to, it's testing, but also I'm being trained in trust. Is that accurate, or is that kind of me just putting that in there?
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Chapter 4: How do the Israelites' actions impact their journey?
Oh, yeah, no, no, I think so, absolutely. You know, God said, I brought you out of here into the wilderness. I brought you out here to show you something. And I brought you out here to show you that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And that's a real lesson for us today, too. It's one thing to read through the Bible in a year.
It's another thing to trust God with what you are reading and you're putting it into practice. You are you're making a mental assent to it, and then you're giving your personal entrusting to God. And it's important to remember during this desert wandering period that in this 40 years, the older generation, those over 20, they're going to die out in the wilderness.
They're not going in to the promised land. It's going to be those who are under 20 that they're going to grow up And they're going to be close to 60 now. And they're the ones that are going to be going into the promised land. And the fearless leader that brought them out, Moses, he's not going to go into the promised land because he disobeyed the Lord a couple of times. And he's going to die soon.
on Mount Nebo just prior to going into the Promised Land, and it's gonna be Joshua that ultimately takes them in. So our attention needs to be on that younger generation, because that's gonna be important later on in the narrative, and especially when we get to the Gospels. Just remember that. It's like one of those points. But Father, I wanna bring up one thing that's really interesting here.
And when you and I go to Israel, we oftentimes will see the Jewish people in Israel. They have little strands of string on the four corners of their garment. And a lot of people ask, well, what is that? What is it? And you commented on this earlier. It says in the book of Numbers, this is where it happens, that God wants them related to trust.
He wants them to be people who are focused on his word. You know, we just said man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And he brought them out into the wilderness for this. But then he even makes them dress in such a way that there's like a sacramental that will remind them of his word in the desert. Right.
So you have these four tassels called tzitzit, or plural, tzitziot, and they are tied on the four corners of their garment, and they are tied in such a way as to represent the 613 commandments of the Torah. So that means that when you see Those tzitziot, you're reminded that you are a son, you're a daughter of the commandments, and this is where you learn to trust God.
And it would be neat if we had something like that today where 24-7 we are just reminded, I'm a son of God's word.
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Chapter 5: What role do the tzitziot play in Jewish tradition?
Right, in that sense of like, even as you noted, the tzitziot, those strings or strands are meant to represent the 613 commandments or commands of the Lord. And as we establish, I think, throughout the course of Exodus, is those commandments aren't given first. They're given after the relationship. Like God's established a covenant, and here's the commandments.
And so what they would do is they would be clothing themselves, right, with this reminder of God's commands. but also that would be clothing with a reminder of the extension of the covenant, like that this is the relationship that you have. And I mean, it's kind of like we would have scapulars or we would have a crucifix, you know, I've been claimed by Christ.
There's something like that, but so powerful to be able to, you know, clothe yourself in that kind of, to literally clothe yourself in that way, that would be a reminder all day of the fact that you've been claimed. Yeah.
Yeah. And, you know, there's so many wonderful things that happen or interesting things, I should say, that happen in the book of Numbers. You have the Nazarite vow. You have the 70 leadership pattern of 70 leading. You have the bronze serpent, the desert wanderings as foreshadowing. something in the future, which is Jesus. But there's also the priestly blessing.
And this was a blessing that I said over my daughters every day before they went to school. No doubt you have said this. It's in the mass. We wait for the final blessing. Right. And that's Numbers chapter 6, which says, The Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron and his sons, Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace or shalom. And so that blessing becomes a major theme in the narrative now. And in fact, on the three pilgrimages, the festivals every year, when they went to Jerusalem, which will be later, they go there for that blessing.
And that's what we receive as the last thing at Mass. Bow your head and receive God's blessing. Unfortunately, sometimes one-tenth of the people are sitting in their car outside at that very point. But I digress. So, yeah, that's where we're at with the book of Numbers. And the book of Numbers has an amazing chapter, chapter 33, that I would draw everyone's attention to.
And as you read it, it's going to be a really a cool reminder of everything that has happened. It's all the stages of Israel's journey from Egypt. So, if you want... a mini story of the story, you can go to chapter 33 and you get from Egypt all the way till the present. Then we have Moses' last letter, his last speech, which is Deuteronomy, the second law. And this is an amazing book.
And it's structured in such a way where the first part of it looks back as to where they came from. Right. And it's kind of like, well, it looks back at where they were. And the last part looks forward to where they're going. And the middle is where we're at right now. So it's kind of like looking into the rear view mirror as we're moving forward, right? And God is going to place them.
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Chapter 6: What are the key themes in the book of Deuteronomy?
This is the prescribed formula for success in a foreign land that is opposed to God and the gospel. And so Moses said, in these words, which I command you this day shall be upon your heart and And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontals between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." So when we talk about you must teach your children, it's in the broader context of your home. And God says that you should even write these words of mine on the doorposts of your house.
And when you go to Israel today, you'll see these little boxes that with these scriptures inside of it nailed to the doorposts of their house. And when they come into their house, they kiss what's called the mezuzah. Mezuzah means doorpost in Hebrew. When they kiss that, they are saying that my home will be ruled by the word of God. And that's what's happening when they go into the promised land.
God says, if you want to be successful, you've got to live like there's only one God, me, and you have to teach your children, and your home has to become what Israel called a mikdash ma'at, that is, a small temple place. where you worship me, you teach your children, that is the key to success.
Now, we have to look at our current situation in the United States and ask ourselves, is it because we have not done those two commands? One God, our family, our home, our children, that lands us in a place where we've lost our narrative, which is what Israel is going to do, because they're not going to obey what God is telling them to do here.
And this, I cannot tell you how critical this is, not only to the story and the narrative, but also our lives today.
Yeah, that makes so much sense too. I hear you describing the Shema, the hero Israel, and And then extending that by saying, teach these to your children and have them on your doorposts, on your arms, on your frontlets, between your eyes. And what it seems like is this, be interiorly converted yourself, like belong fully to the Lord yourself and pass it on.
And not just pass it on from a stage and pass it on through a microphone, but pass it on to your children. I mean, to the people who are living in your house with you. And there's that sense of like, it seems that... This is the way in which, in the new covenant, the church has been able to grow, is that you have people who are personally converted.
They know that they've been made into sons and daughters of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. then they teach that to those who are in their immediate vicinity in passing on the faith that they have.
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