What Tanchuma Heard When God Spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert

The opening verse of the Book of Numbers is dating-formula plain. Then the Lord spoke unto Moses in the Sinai desert, in the tent of meeting. Midrash Tanchuma, the homiletic midrash on the Torah compiled in late aggadic Palestine, opens three separate teachings from inside that one sentence.

The first reading runs through the geography of every place the Holy One had previously spoken with Moses. The second reads the verse through Song of Songs 7 and into the Sanhedrin's chamber. The third reads it through Psalm 147 and into a parable about a king who divorces three wives before marrying a poor orphan of noble ancestry. Three readings from the same verse.

Every Place the Holy One Had Spoken With Moses

Tanchuma Bamidbar 3 begins with an itinerary. Before the tent of meeting was set up, the Holy One spoke with Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:4). After that He spoke in Midian (Exodus 4:19). After that He spoke in Egypt (Exodus 12:1). After that He spoke at Sinai itself (Leviticus 25:1). And then, the Tanchuma teaches, once the tent of meeting was erected, the conversation became continuous and located.

The teaching is geographic. The relationship between Moses and the Holy One had been moving. Bush, Midian, Egypt, Sinai, tent of meeting. Each location had its own conditions for the conversation. The Tanchuma is using the Numbers 1:1 verse to mark the transition from itinerant divine speech to fixed-address divine speech. The tent of meeting was, in this reading, the first permanent appointment the Holy One ever kept.

The Sanhedrin Compared to a Navel

Tanchuma Bamidbar 4 takes a radically different route into the same verse. The midrash reads Numbers 1:1 against Song of Songs 7:3. Your navel is a round bowl; let not mixed wine be lacking; your belly is a heap of wheat fenced in with lilies.

The navel, the Tanchuma teaches, is the Sanhedrin, the high court of Israel, which sat in the chamber of hewn stone in the Temple. The belly of wheat is the people of Israel. The lilies fencing the wheat are the words of Torah. The Tanchuma is teaching that the census taken in Numbers 1 is not a population count. It is the assembling of the body around its navel. The Sanhedrin will, eventually, sit in the chamber of hewn stone. The census is the early count of the body that institution will serve.

The teaching uses anatomy to make a structural point. A body without a navel is not viable. A people without a Sanhedrin, the Tanchuma is arguing, is not yet fully a people. The Numbers 1:1 verse, in this reading, is the announcement of the assembly that the Sanhedrin will eventually adjudicate.

The King Who Married the Orphan of Noble Ancestry

The third reading is the most theatrical. Tanchuma Bamidbar 5 reads Numbers 1:1 against Psalm 147:20. He has not done so for any nation, and they do not know His laws, Hallelujah.

The Tanchuma offers a parable. A king took a first wife and did not bother to write her a marriage contract. He divorced her and did not bother to write her a divorce document. He did the same with a second wife. He did the same with a third. Then he saw a poor orphan, a woman of noble ancestry, and decided to marry her properly. He summoned his shoshevin, his best man, and announced his intention.

The poor orphan, the Tanchuma teaches, is Israel. The three previous wives are the generations of nations the Holy One had related to without committing the relationship to writing. The marriage contract finally drawn up at Sinai is the Torah itself. The Numbers 1:1 verse, in this reading, is the marriage being formally registered.

The teaching is bracing. The Holy One, the Tanchuma is willing to say, had previous relationships. None of them were committed to writing. The Torah is the first marriage contract, and the Israel of Numbers 1:1 is the first wife to receive one.

Why One Verse Opened Three Doors

Read the three Tanchuma passages together and the homiletic method becomes legible. Midrash Tanchuma treats Numbers 1:1 not as a verse with a meaning but as a verse with multiple meanings, each of which depends on the cross-reference the midrash brings to it.

Cross-reference with the Exodus narratives produces the geography of divine speech. Cross-reference with Song of Songs produces the Sanhedrin and the body of Israel. Cross-reference with Psalm 147 produces the parable of the marriage contract. The Tanchuma is teaching its reader, by example, that no verse in Torah has a single reading. The reader's job is to bring the cross-reference that unlocks the relevant teaching.