Numbers 27:15-17

 

When Moses is about to die, Yahweh instructs him to view the Promised Land from the Abarim Mountains, but that he will not be allowed to enter Israel and die there, a punishment of Moses by Yahweh for Moses’s misbehavior during the people’s rebellion against God in the desert of Zin.

Here is Moses responding to God’s instruction, as reported in my The New American Bible: “Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all mankind,* (Here is the footnote for 27,16: The God of the spirits of all mankind: the sense that God knows the character and abilities of all men and therefore knows best whom to appoint—cf Acts 1,24--, or, more probably, that God is Master of life and death and therefore can call Moses from this world whenever he wishes; cf the same phrase in Nm 16:22, where ‘spirit’ evidently means ‘the life principle.’) set over the community a man who shall act as their leader in all things, to guide them in all their actions, that the Lord’s community shall not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

My response: I have not problem with this Roman Catholic theological interpretation of these Biblical lines, that God is Master or Mistress of all the spirits of mankind, the Master or Mistress of the life principle so God can call us home whenever He or She decides to. Yahweh thus picked the leader of the next generation to replace Moses, Joshua.

Here are these same lines from the Holy Bible (KJV): “And Moses spake unto the Lord saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all the flesh, set a man over the congregation.

Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd.”

My responseL I appreciate that this interpretation highlights that Yahweh is the God of the spirits of all the flesh, that is of all mortal souls. Yahweh wants a leader or shepherd to guide His flock, His sheep.

I would suggest that we now teach in 2026, people to maverize so that they can worship God and live well without a shepherd to guide them anymore—nonindividuators and collectivists require leaders much more than do individuators and individualists who can lead themselves wisely.