Bible Talks

Narrator: Chris Genthree
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At the Border of The Good Land Numbers 13 to 14:11
WHEN the people of Israel reached Kadesh, near the border of Canaan, the land God had said He would give them, Moses said to go forward and, “Fear not.” But the people said it would be better to first send men to learn about the people who lived there, and to find the best way to go in.
So God told Moses to choose twelve men, called spies, to go into Canaan and bring back word to the camp.
After forty days the men returned bringing fine fruits to show the people what good things grew there, —figs, pomegranates, and grapes, one cluster so large that two men carried it between them on a staff. They had cut it from a vine in the valley near Hebron, where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived.
The spies all said the land was good, but ten said they were afraid of the people who lived there, that they were giants with big cities and high walls! Their stories made the people so afraid that they cried and did not want to go on. They said their children would all be killed.
Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, tried to encourage the people, and said, “Let us go up at once . . . we are well able ... The Lord is with us.” But the people were so angry they would have stoned Joshua and Caleb if God had not stopped them.
God had told them He would give them homes in Canaan where they should live safely; that He would send away all enemies; and no wild animals should hurt their children (Lev. 26:3-123If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. 10And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. 11And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. 12And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. (Leviticus 26:3‑12)). How sad they did not believe God! Because they did not believe, He said they could never live in Canaan, but that their children when grown, should go there with. Joshua and Caleb (Read Deut. 1:19-3319And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. 20And I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our God doth give unto us. 21Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged. 22And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. 23And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe: 24And they turned and went up into the mountain, and came unto the valley of Eshcol, and searched it out. 25And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us. 26Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God: 27And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the Lord hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there. 29Then I said unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them. 30The Lord your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes; 31And in the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place. 32Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God, 33Who went in the way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to show you by what way ye should go, and in a cloud by day. (Deuteronomy 1:19‑33); Psalm 106:2424Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word: (Psalm 106:24)).
Look on a Bible map of Arabia anti Canaan, and you can find Kadesh north. of Mt. Sinai, and Hebron near the center of Canaan.
ML 10/03/1937