Numbers 14.
WAS the journey of the Israelites across the desert to end in a return to Egypt? Unbelief stood in the way of going any further now in the direction of Canaan, and they proposed to one another to make a new leader instead of Moses, to lead them back to the country of their slavery.
Joshua and Caleb, the only godly ones of the twelve men who had searched the promised land, tried to quiet the people (verses 6-9), telling them God was on their side, and would surely carry out His promise; but they wanted to stone them. Then God appeared, His glory cloud being seen before all the children of Israel. He told Moses He would send disease among them, and have them no longer for His people; instead He would make of Moses a great nation, greater than the Israelites. This was the second time that God had offered to Moses to make him the head of a chosen nation, as you will find if you turn back to Exodus 32:1010Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. (Exodus 32:10).
But Moses paid no more attention to the second offer than to the first. He thinks of the name of God, and not of getting honors for himself, and again he pleads for the people’s forgiveness. God answers (verse 20) that He has pardoned, but that none of those who would not believe Him, or trust in His word, would be allowed to enter the promised land. Two men only of all that great army of men and women who set out from Egypt were to set foot in it as their home, but the children, from the youngest up to nineteen years of age, whom their parents said were brought out to die, would be brought into that home-land which God had told of. For forty years the people were to stay in the wilderness, until all that were grown up when they left Egypt, were dead.
The chapter ends with the people, unwilling to obey as always, going on now into the enemy’s country, alone, where before they would not go with God, and so they are driven back by their enemies. There is no power against Satan except God’s power.
ML 02/03/1924