Numbers

"Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah" is one of the best-known hymns in the world. Yet the book of numbers, whose story that hymn summarizes, is seldom read. Why? "Its very title puts the modern reader off," writes Gordon Wenham. "In ancient time numbers were seen as mysterious and symbolic, a key to reality and the mind of God himself. Today they are associated with computers and the depersonalization that threatens our society." In his effort to bridge the great gulf between the book and our age,…