Day 65, March 6 Bible Reading
Num. 13 / Deut. 1:19-25 Moses sends twelve spies to Canaan / The spies’ report
Num. 14 / Deut. 1:26-46 The Israelites rebel / Forty years of wandering begin
Num. 13 / Deut. 1:19-25 Moses sends twelve spies to Canaan / The spies’ report
Deut 1:19-21 It is only an 11 day journey to the promise land from Horeb and Mt. Sinai. Moses is recounting how they journeyed to Kadesh Barnea, to the mountains of the Amorites which God promised to them as a possession.
Deut 1:22-25 According to Deut. account, it was the people who suggested sending out men to search out the land to understand which way they should go and what cities they would encounter. It is interesting to me that God dwelling in the ark was the One who directed them through the wilderness. Why would they suddenly decide not to have God direct the way they should possess the land. Well it shows that if a human wants to take some initiative in activation of the promises, God can accommodate. The spies brought back a report that it was a good land. “It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.” Sometimes even if a leader or boss directs an activity, to get buy in, you allow the workers to research and analyze it for themselves. It does come with some risks. So how did the good report of it being a good land, turn into a report of rebellion? Read on.
Num 13:1-2 While Deut indicated it was the people’s idea, Num 13 indicated it was God’s idea, to send out spies. So who was it?
Num 13:3-16 All twelve spies were named. Most famous of those where Hoshea or Joshua from the tribe of Benjamin, and Caleb from the tribe of Issachar.
Num 13-17-20 They were given instructions to observe the
People - Are the weak or string; few or many
Land - Good or Bad, rich or poor, has forests
Cities - Like camps or fortified
Num 13:21-22 They met the descendants of Anak. These were Giants. Anak is also called “Anax,” which is another name for Zeus in Greek mythology. Anak was the #1 king, and his three sons were also kings over their tribes and lands as well. All of these Anakim, which were descended from the Rephaim, which were descended from the Nephilim, were the giants, who were half-god, half-human, that the Israelites encountered when they went to spy out the Promised Land (see later versus 32mand 33)
Num 13:23-25 The land was so rich that one cluster of grapes had to be carried by two men. It was called the Valley of Eshcol [Clusters]. They brought back pomegranates and figs.
Num 13:26-29 They came back with a report. Here is the initial report. It started iut neutral
People - They are strong and many. Moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.
Land - Rich; flowing with milk and honey
Cities - Fortified and very large.
Num 13:30 It seems the people started to be disquieted at the neutral report. Caleb piped up and stated that they can overcome it. “Let’s go up and take possession”
Num 13:31-33 Isn’t it funny when you give an initial report and you get a bad reaction, that you try to modify the report to make yourself not look bad or be unpopular to the person you are presenting to, or give excuses for the report? This is exactly what happened. Here is the modified report influenced by the mood of the people:
People - They are very tall, We saw Giants, the Nephilim, and we were grasshoppers to them
Land - It devours its inhabitants
Cities - they are fortified up to heaven!!
Num. 14 / Deut. 1:26-46 The Israelites rebel / Forty years of wandering begin
Deut 1:26-28 Even though they initially brought back a good report that it was a good land, the people, according to Moses, rebelled against the command of the Lord, complaining that the Lord brought them all this way to be destroyed by the Amorites, and be destroyed by the Anakim. It was the people who rebelled at spies initial report, and subsequently, the 10 spies who modified their report based on the people’s reactions that cause the Lord to lose his cool. We will see how He did in Num 14
Deut 1: 29-33 Moses pleaded with them to not be afraid or terrified by the giants, because the same Lord, you God, who carried Israel throughout the wilderness as a father carries his son, and you showed them the way to go via the fire by night and cloud by day, will fight for them, just as He did in Egypt. God wanted to wipe out this mixed seed from the earth, so that it would never compromise bringing in His seed, Christ.
This was close to the Feast of Tabernacles. If Israel would have obeyed, Passover would be marked by their departure from Egypt, Pentecost at Sinai, and the Feast of Tabernacles when they enter triumphantly into the promised land. If you thought Egypt was spectacular, God destroying the Giants and Rephaim would have been out of this world. This mess up of God’s plan was what got God so angry. When they enter the promised land again 40 years later, it was instead during Passover. They had to start all over again.
Deut 1:33-40 Now you know why the entire nation of Israel was punished, not just the 10 spies. The Lord when he heard what the children of Israel was saying, decreed that not one of these men of this evil generation will see the land except Caleb and Joshua, not even Moses (because of a later incident). The very children they were trying to protect from the giants, the ones they thought were victims of God whom they thought, wanted to see them killed in the desert, would inherit the land. Everyone now, turn and go back to the wilderness and back to the Red Sea.
Deut 1:41-46 Of course after a rebuke like that the people were sorry. They made matters worse by presumptuously going to fight the Amorites on the mountain and they were soundly beaten. This is a sobering verse “Then you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not listen to your voice nor give ear to you.” [Deut 1:45]
Num 14:1-10a More details are given here. The people complained, stating it would have been better if they had died in Egypt or in the wilderness, and it was time to select a new leader to return to Egypt because “ Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” They even wanted to stone Joshua and Caleb with stones for for stating that the land is good, and the Lord will fight for us. God had had enough. Imagine the scene, Suddenly the Glory appeared in the tabernacle of meeting.
Num 14:10b-12 God was ready to disinherit them. Soak on that for a moment. Even though they got the promises through Abraham, they threatened to delay God’s plan. He was ready to remove them all together and make a new people vis Moses. His promise to Abraham would have still been fulfilled but not through these people.
Num 14:13-19 Moses was in shock. He appealed to God saying, we have come too far to drastically start over. We cannot have all this work done for nothing and the nations or even Egypt saying God was not POWERFUL enough to bring them into the land. I love how Moses negotiated here. He now appeals to God’s Power, His True Power. He said I know you are POWERFUL and You can send a great pestilence to kill all these people. Now I appeal to you REAL POWER, the Power to Forgive, which is even more powerful that the 10 plagues of Egypt.. “And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying, 18 ‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ 19 Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Num 14:20-21 God now gets on HIS SOAPBOX. THIS → “20 Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, according to your word; 21 but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord—”. In other words, yes the nations may say I was not powerful enough to bring them into the land now, and my plan may have been delayed or temporarily frustrated, but as I live I WILL HAVE THE LAST LAUGH. My Ultimate Plan would be accomplished. The whole Earth will be filled with the Glory of God NOT JUST this flimsy tabernacle of meeting, nor just this people. The WHOLE EARTH will be my Tabernacle, even the Egyptians, and all the nations, Selah on that.
What is the lesson here? Several:
In the course of time God’s will can be frustrated and even denied or not done.
But at the end of the day God’s ultimate will/ objective will always be done.
God can give a promise. It is conditional. He has several options to accomplish it, and if you are not in a position to accomplish it, you can be removed.
This reality is all about His Will, His objective, not yours.
What is God’s Objective for all of Reality ? To produce after His Own Kind. Either you are with that Objective or Not.
God’s promise to Israel was ALWAYS Conditional and UNTIL Christ. Israel DOES NOT HAVE A FOREVER COVENANT. In fact God’s covenant to Israel ends with Christ.
Only the Better Covenant with Christ is FOREVER and non-negotiable. It is a Grant covenant that depends on the performance of ONE, Christ Only, and not in your performance the mess it up. That is the GOOD NEWS. It is NOT like the vassal covenant like the one with Moses that depending on the performance of TWO, God and Israel with Israel always messing up. We are in a Better Covenant secured by the powerful all inclusive efficacy of the finished work of the CROSS. That is GOOD NEWS. You cannot mess up God’s objective to make YOU fully HIS KIND after the image if CHRIST.
The Ultimate Objective of the Whole EARTH being filled with His Gory, being the Tabernacle of God will be ultimately achieved by One greater than Moses. All of the enemies of God, even the Hittites, Amorites, Egyptians would be included. The WHOLE EARTH will be filled with His Glory. The True Tabernacle is the entire earth with all the nations, the humans, the people, all transformed to be HIS Kind, the God Kind, not just a flimsy wooden structure that Moses built surrounded by a flawed people, nor even a glorious temple like Solomon’s or Herod’s. Israel is not enough to contain His Glory. Israel was just a womb to bring forth the man child who can contain His Full Glory - The First True NEW EARTH - CHRIST.
Christ is the NEW EARTH with the New Heaven to Fill His Entire Glory in a People.
Nums 14:22-35 God came down from his soapbox to reiterate that everyone who has seen His Glory and tested him now 10 times, and still have not heeded His Voice and who have rejected Him, will not come into His rest. The only exceptions are Caleb [and Joshua]. Forty years they are to wander and die in the wilderness.
So many passages of scripture have opined on this event.
Ps 95:7b-11 Today, if you will hear His voice: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of rial in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me;
They tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation,
And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,
And they do not know My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
Ps 78:18 “And they tested God in their heart, By asking for the food of their fancy.”
What was the end result? God rejected Ephraim [The House of Israel] and chose Judah, so that He can have HIS David, the Messiah, Christ to reign, to build his TRUE Sanctuary, like the earth which He has established forever.
Ps 75: 67-72 “Moreover He rejected the tent of Joseph,
And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved.
And He built His sanctuary like the heights,
Like the earth which He has established forever.
He also chose David His servant,
And took him from the sheepfolds;
It is important to note though that when Heb 3:7-19 was written, Israel, and Judah was actually experiencing a second exodus. This time instead of Moses/ Joshua we had Christ in the first century leading an exodus of remnants out from Jerusalem who has become an Egypt, a Sodom, a Gomorrah in the first century, an exodus from the Old Covenant. The writer from Hebrews warned that if they did not heed Moses, and wrath came upon them, how much more not heeding a greater One than Moses, Christ, would greater wrath come upon those 1st century Jews. That is exactly what happened. Jerusalem, Spiritual Egypt was destroyed in AD 70. That was the second and final exodus.
Num 14:36-38 Well poof, those ten spies died immediately by a plague. Serious stuff
Num 14:39-46 And of course, the Israelites, having realized the seriousness of their error, instead of submitted to the judgment, tried to make it right by doing their own thing, and attacking the Amalekites without God going with them and were soundly beaten. You can make matters worse if you try to make amends with your own hands instead of submitting to the consequences of your actions and learning your lesson.
Comments
Post a Comment