When Yahweh threatened to kill off the Israelites in Numbers 14:12 and replace them with a nation he’d build through Moses instead, Moses’ response in verse 17 wasn’t to grab the opportunity to become a great leader and make a name for himself, it was, “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed.”
And “strength displayed” in two ways. First of all in Yahweh being “slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion” (18), because It was that amazing strength in Yahweh that had got the Israelites to the border of the land he’d promised to Abraham, despite their constant moaning and resistance to him. Without that strength of Yahweh being able to forgive, the nation of Israel would have ceased to exist.
But there was a second strength Moses knew Yahweh had – and how crucial he display it too. And that was making sure “the guilty aren’t left unpunished” in verse 18. And Yahweh’s response in verse 20 was, “I have forgiven them (displaying his first strength). Nevertheless (21), as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of those (22) who saw my glory and the miracles I performed in Egypt and in the desert, who disobeyed me and tested me ten times – not one of them (23) will ever see the land I promised to their forefathers . No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.”
And Moses knew the Israelites needed to see that strength in Yahweh too, that he would not back down from punishing the guilty, because the rebels would simply continue rebelling to the detriment of the whole nation and to God’s purpose. And Yahweh came through on that one all right: “I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community which has banded against me. They will meet their end in the desert; here they will die” (35).
Did Yahweh then back down when the Israelites admitted “We’ve sinned” and they tried to reverse his punishment by “going up to the place he’d promised” (40)? No, because as Moses warned them in verse 43, “you’ve turned away from the Lord so he won’t be with you and you will fall by the sword.” But typical of them by now, they didn’t listen to that either, so they got exactly what their presumption deserved (44-45).
It also included their children “suffering for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies here in the desert” (33). But why punish the children who weren’t guilty “To the third and fourth generation” too?….(next blog)
