Book of Numbers Trivia
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100 free Book of Numbers trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Numbers is the Bible book people skip. It opens with a census and closes with boundary lists, and in between it hides some of the strangest stories in scripture: a prophet outwitted by his own beast, a staff that blossoms overnight, the ground opening under rebels, and a blessing still spoken in synagogues and churches today. These 100 questions follow Israel from Sinai to the plains of Moab: the two censuses, the twelve spies and the long punishment that followed, the revolt against Moses, the mistake that kept him out of Canaan, the hired seer whose curses came out as blessings, and the laws on vows, tithes, refuge and inheritance that grew out of the journey. It suits a church quiz, a Sunday-school teacher after a sharper round, or anyone who wants to know the fourth book of the Torah better than the skim they gave it. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a group.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animal, beaten three times by Balaam on the road to Moab, opened its mouth and spoke to him?
A donkey
A donkey saw the angel with the drawn sword that Balaam could not, and only after the third beating did it ask, 'What have I done to you?' Balaam then saw the angel too and offered to turn back.
Q 02What did Moses raise on a pole so the bitten could look and live, an object Hezekiah later smashed?
A bronze serpent
A bronze serpent on a pole healed anyone who looked at it, and Israel kept it for centuries until Hezekiah broke up the relic, by then called Nehushtan, because people were burning incense to it. Jesus compares himself to it in John 3:14.
Q 03How many years was Israel sentenced to wander, one year for each day the spies had explored Canaan?
Forty
Forty years meant everyone counted in the census aged twenty or over would die in the desert, and only the two spies who had dissented were spared to enter the land.
Q 04What did Moses' spies carry on a pole between two men from the Valley of Eshkol in Canaan?
A cluster of grapes
A cluster of grapes so heavy it took two men to carry gave the valley its name, Eshkol, 'cluster'. The spies showed it off as proof the land flowed with milk and honey, then ten of them said its people could not be beaten.
Q 05What fate befell Dathan and Abiram, with their households, for defying Moses in Korah's revolt?
Swallowed by the earth
Swallowed by the earth, they 'went down alive into the realm of the dead', yet Korah's own sons survived, and eleven psalms, Psalm 84 among them, are headed 'of the sons of Korah'.
Q 06What did Aaron's staff sprout overnight when laid before the ark beside the other tribes' staffs?
Almonds
Almonds, along with buds and blossoms, settled that only Aaron's line held the priesthood, and the staff was kept before the ark as a warning; Hebrews 9:4 says it lay inside the ark itself.
Q 07What had God told Moses to do to the rock at Meribah, which he struck twice with his staff instead?
Speak to it
Speak to it was all God had asked of Moses at the rock; he struck it twice instead, and the water still gushed for the whole community. For failing to 'honor me as holy', he and Aaron were both barred from Canaan.
Q 08Who was struck leprous, 'as white as snow', for speaking against Moses over his Cushite wife?
Miriam
Miriam, Moses' sister, was shut outside the camp for seven days while the whole nation waited, and she died and was buried at Kadesh before Israel's final march.
Q 09Which spy, like Joshua, was allowed into Canaan because he 'followed the LORD wholeheartedly'?
Caleb
Caleb, 'because he has a different spirit', was promised the land he had scouted, and in Joshua 14 he claims Hebron at eighty-five, 'still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out'.
Q 10What did a wind from the sea pile two cubits deep around the camp after Israel grew sick of manna?
Quail
Quail fell a day's walk in every direction, but while the meat was still between their teeth a plague struck, and the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, 'graves of craving'.
Q 11Which word completes the Priestly Blessing: 'the LORD make his face shine on you and be ___ to you'?
Gracious
Gracious is the word, and when kohanim give this blessing they spread their fingers in a gesture Leonard Nimoy glimpsed in synagogue as a boy and later turned into Spock's Vulcan salute.
Q 12In the Numbers census, whom did the Levites, counted from a month old, replace one for one?
Israel's firstborn sons
Israel's firstborn sons, 22,273 of them, were swapped for the 22,000 Levites as God's own. The 273 left over had to be bought back at five shekels a head, paid to Aaron.
Q 13Which vow in Numbers 6 bans wine, razors and corpses, and was later kept from birth by Samson?
Nazirite
Q 21Which god did Israel 'yoke themselves to' after Moabite women invited the men to their sacrifices?
Baal of Peor
Baal of Peor cost 24,000 lives in the plague that followed, a toll Paul gives as 23,000 'in one day' in 1 Corinthians 10:8.
Q 22What did Zelophehad's five daughters win from Moses, since their father had died leaving no sons?
The right to inherit land
The right to inherit land passed to daughters when a man died without sons, a ruling the LORD himself endorsed, 'What Zelophehad's daughters are saying is right', on condition they married within their tribe.
Q 23On which mountain did Aaron die after Moses stripped his priestly garments and put them on his son?
Mount Hor
Nazirite vows normally ended with the hair shaved and burned under the fellowship offering, and in Acts 21 Paul pays the expenses of four men completing theirs.
Q 14What was Joshua's name before Moses renamed him, as recorded in the list of the twelve spies?
Hoshea
Hoshea means 'salvation' and Yehoshua 'the LORD is salvation', a name that passed through Greek as Iesous, the same form the New Testament uses for Jesus.
Q 15Whose descendants, living at Hebron, made ten of the spies feel 'like grasshoppers' by comparison?
Anak
Anak's descendants, whom the spies tied to the Nephilim, the giants of Genesis 6, so frightened the camp that the people wept all night and talked of choosing a leader to take them back to Egypt.
Q 16Which killers could shelter in the six cities of refuge Moses set aside?
Those who killed without intent
Those who killed without intent could flee to six Levite towns, three on each bank of the Jordan, and were tried by the assembly; a murderer got no shelter, and no ransom could buy his life.
Q 17Until what event did a killer have to stay inside his city of refuge?
The death of the high priest
The death of the high priest freed every refugee at once, which is why, the Mishnah says, the priest's mother sent them food and clothing so they would not pray for her son to die.
Q 18Which king of Moab hired a seer from the Euphrates to curse the Israelites camped on his border?
Balak
Balak son of Zippor led the seer to three different hilltops and built seven altars at each, and got a blessing on Israel every time instead of a curse.
Q 19Which sign in Balaam's oracle, 'I see him, but not now', gave the rebel Bar Kokhba his name?
A star
A star, kokhav in Hebrew, is why Simon bar Kosiba's followers hailed him as Bar Kokhba, 'son of the star', when he led the revolt against Rome that erupted in 132.
Q 20What does the synagogue prayer Mah Tovu call 'beautiful', in words lifted from Balaam's blessing?
Jacob's tents
Jacob's tents are praised in Numbers 24:5, so the prayer said on entering a synagogue opens with the words of a non-Israelite seer who had been hired to curse Israel, not bless it.
Mount Hor, on the border of Edom, is where Aaron was sent to die, barred from Canaan because he and Moses had rebelled at the waters of Meribah, and all Israel mourned him for thirty days.
Q 24Which son of Aaron had the 250 rebels' censers hammered into sheets to overlay the altar?
Eleazar
Eleazar collected the censers from the charred remains as a sign that only Aaron's descendants could burn incense, and he later succeeded Aaron in office.
Q 25What punishment did the whole assembly carry out on a man caught gathering wood on the Sabbath?
Stoning
Stoning outside the camp was ordered only after the man had been held in custody because 'it was not clear what should be done to him', and the ruling came straight from the LORD.
Q 26What, each with a blue cord, were Israelites told to wear on the corners of their garments?
Tassels
Tassels with a blue thread became the tzitzit on the Jewish prayer shawl. The recipe for the dye, tekhelet, was lost for centuries, and many now trace it to a Mediterranean sea snail, Hexaplex trunculus, though the match is debated.
Q 27What did Moses beg Hobab, his Midianite in-law, to be for Israel on the march?
Their eyes
Their eyes, Moses said, because Hobab knew where to camp in the wilderness. He refused at first, yet Judges later places Kenite descendants of Moses' in-laws in the Negev near Arad.
Q 28Which king of Heshbon barred Israel from the King's Highway and lost his land from Arnon to Jabbok?
Sihon
Sihon's capital Heshbon was later rebuilt by one of the herd-owning tribes that chose to settle east of the Jordan, on the land he lost by refusing Israel the road.
Q 29Which king of Bashan, whose army met Israel at Edrei, was the last of the giant Rephaites?
Og
Og's iron bed, Deuteronomy adds, was more than nine cubits long, about four metres, and could still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites; his land went to half the tribe of Manasseh.
Q 30Which two tribes asked Moses for Jazer and Gilead, east of the Jordan, to graze their huge herds?
Reuben and Gad
Reuben and Gad got Gilead on condition their fighting men crossed the Jordan first, with Moses' warning, 'you may be sure that your sin will find you out'.