In Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers, Adriane Leveen offers an imaginative rereading of the fourth book of Moses. Leveen examines how the editors of Numbers crafted a narrative of the forty-year journey through the wilderness in order to shape Israelite understanding of the past and influence the world-view of future generations. Leveen’s book explores religious politics, the complexities of collective memory, and the literary strategies used by the editors of Numbers to convince the children of Israel to accept priestly rule. Leveen considers how this process took place in the face of the horrifying memory at the heart of the Book of Numbers: the death of an entire generation of Israelites in the wilderness, struck down before their children’s eyes by divine decree.