Falling in the Wilderness: Death Reports in the Book of Numbers

In this article, I analyze the fate of those liberated from Egypt only to die abandoned somewhere in the wilderness. I do so by tracing their final days as reported in the Book of Numbers, a record that yields evidence of careful design and coherence. Such design I assume to be an exegetical and polemical act on the part of a redactor, who shapes the scattered reports of death into an unusual type of commemoration, one highly critical of those commemorated. The biblical record not only reports on the punishment of the generation, but itself constitutes an essential aspect of that punishment.

After illustrating the widespread concern with the proper treatment of the dead in ancient Israel, I argue that the anonymity of death, the lack of burial, and the unceremonious abandonment of the generation in the wilderness as depicted in Numbers creates a significant, horrifying, deterrent. The biblical redactor insists that Israel, in each generation, understand that one cannot live in such a wilderness--a site in which appetites dominate, over which priestly law and God have no dominion. The people must see they have no choice but to choose life in a land under the authority of the priests. Only the priests can ensure God's blessing by obtaining the divine presence in the priestly sanctuary. The redactor has exploited the narrative of the wilderness period to create the most dramatic of choices.