NOTES for Num 10:1-36

The trumpets made by Moses serve not only as signaling instruments, but also so that the Lord may “remember” Israel in a moment of danger. The Ark of the Covenant is likewise not merely an object of worship and a repository for the tablets of the Law, but also the place of the Lord's presence with His people. We often see in the Bible how what has already been given is intertwined with what still remains a calling and a task: the call, the promise, and the need to fulfill God's plan stand alongside signs of what the Lord has already done for His people, of His presence that has already become a reality. If He is already here, where else is there to strive? In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus fully expresses this paradox when He calls Himself at once the truth and the life and also the way to truth and life, when He promises to return in glory and at the same time says, “I am with you always.”