What more could Yahweh have done to show how “jealous” he was for the Israelites? Like a devoted husband he’d poured his love into providing for and protecting them, so they not only survived every obstacle and opposition on their journey from Egypt, they were now poised at the very gates to the Promised Land, ready to enter it as soon as the report came back from those who’d been sent to check it out, Numbers 13:17-25.
And to begin with, in verse 27, their report confirmed exactly what Yahweh had promised back in Exodus 3:8, that “the land really does flow with milk and honey,” with just one bunch of grapes requiring two men to carry it as evidence (Numbers 13:23). Caleb, therefore, was all for “going up and taking possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (30).
“But” in verses 31-33 “the men who’d gone up with him spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they’d explored,” that it would be suicidal attacking it because the people there were huge and their cities heavily fortified. Which brought on another heavy bout of moaning among the Israelites against Yahweh for bringing them to a land that would get them all killed. So they were all for choosing another leader to take them back to Egypt, Numbers 14:2-4.
Caleb, now joined by Joshua, fires right back with a ‘How dare you suggest such a thing?’ when it’s obvious that “the Lord wants us to have this land, so there’s nothing we need fear from these people. We’ll swallow them up, because they don’t have any protection, but the Lord is with us. So do not lead an insurrection against him” (5-9). But rather than listen to Joshua and Caleb, the people considered stoning them (10).
Well, that had Yahweh telling Moses in verse 11, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?” It was the final straw. Everything he’d done for them, and wanted to do for them, and it all meant nothing. So Yahweh made the consequences of their contempt crystal clear: “I’m going to strike the lot of them down with a plague and it will destroy them, so I can make you, Moses, into a nation that will be so much greater and stronger” (12).
So Israel’s contempt for Yahweh had banged the last nail in their coffin. Did Israel’s story end there, then? Not so, because in jumps “Moses the Mediator”….(next blog)
