<P> Miriam dies at Kadesh Barnea and the Israelites set out for Moab, on Canaan's eastern border . The Israelites blame Moses for the lack of water . Moses is ordered by God to speak to a rock but initially disobeys, and is punished by the announcement that he shall not enter Canaan . The king of Edom refuses permission to pass through his land and they go around it . Aaron dies on Mount Hor . The Israelites are bitten by Fiery flying serpents for speaking against God and Moses . A brazen serpent is made to ward off these serpents . </P> <P> The Israelites arrive on the plains of Moab . A new census gives the total number of males from twenty years and upward as 601,730, and the number of the Levites from the age of one month and upward as 23,000 . The land shall be divided by lot . The daughters of Zelophehad, their father having no sons, are to share in the allotment . Moses is ordered to appoint Joshua as his successor . Prescriptions for the observance of the feasts and the offerings for different occasions are enumerated . Moses orders the Israelites to massacre the people of Midian . The Reubenites and the Gadites request Moses to assign them the land east of the Jordan . Moses grants their request after they promise to help in the conquest of the land west of the Jordan . The land east of the Jordan is divided among the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half - tribe of Manasseh . Moses recalls the stations at which the Israelites halted during their forty years' wanderings and instructs the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites and destroy their idols . The boundaries of the land are spelled out; the land is to be divided under the supervision of Eleazar, Joshua, and twelve princes, one of each tribe . </P> <P> The majority of modern biblical scholars believe that the Torah (the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) reached its present form in the post-Exilic period (i.e., after c. 520 BCE), based on pre-existing written and oral traditions and "contemporary geographical and demographic details but even more importantly from contemporary political realities". The five books are often described as being drawn from four "sources" - schools of writers rather than individuals - the Yahwist and the Elohist (frequently treated as a single source), the Priestly source and the Deuteronomist . There is ongoing dispute over the origins of the non-Priestly source (s), but it is generally agreed that the Priestly source is post-exilic . </P> <Ul> <Li> Genesis is made up of Priestly and non-Priestly material . </Li> <Li> Exodus is an anthology drawn from nearly all periods of Israel's history . </Li> <Li> Leviticus is entirely Priestly and dates from the exilic / post-exilic period . </Li> <Li> Numbers is a Priestly redaction (i.e., editing) of a non-Priestly original . </Li> <Li> Deuteronomy, now the last book of the Torah, began as the set of religious laws (these make up the bulk of the book), was extended in the early part of the 6th century BCE to serve as the introduction to the Deuteronomistic history (the books from Joshua to Kings), and later still was detached from that history, extended and edited again, and attached to the Torah . </Li> </Ul>

When was the book of numbers written in the bible