Seder 131: Numbers 34: Repairing the Sin of the Scouts

 In Numbers 34, God lays out the boundaries of the land west of the Jordan River that ten tribes of Israel will be inheriting.  The tribes of Reuben and Gad, along with part of the tribe of Manasseh, will living east of the Jordan (verses 13-15).  God also identifies 10 tribal chieftains from these tribes who will assist Eleazar and Joshua in distributing the land (verses 16-29).  

Commentator Michael Morales points out some parallels between Numbers 34 and Numbers 13, in another example of the way that two generations of Israelites are compared in the book of Numbers.  

In Numbers 13, the scouts in year 2 of the Exodus toured the land "from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath (v. 21).  This description accords with the land described in chapter 34 (see verses 3, 8).  

In Numbers 13, ten scouts gave a false, misleading report of what they had seen and rejected God's gift of the land.  But in chapter 34, 10 leaders would assist in allotting the land to the Israelites, in a sense repairing the sin of those 10 scouts.  The second generation is ready to cross the Jordan and claim the land, unlike their parents.

Seder 130: Numbers 33---Summarizing Israel's Journey

 Numbers 33 is an itinerary listing stops made by the children of Israel on their 40-year trek from Egypt to the Promised Land.  The account begins, "These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron" (verse 1).  This language, reminiscent of Numbers 10, frames the journey as a victory march.  Verse 3 also contributes to such a picture.  

The account continues, "Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the LORD..." (ESV).  Our modern English translations lean toward the interpretation that the thing commanded by God was that Moses record the stages of the journey. While that was surely the case, verse 2 probably is saying primarily that the stages of Israel's travels were carried out at God's command, as we read in Numbers 9:18, 20, 23.  This implies that each stage was an important part of Israel's training, so that we should think about the 40-year duration of their travels as education more than punishment.  

The account consists largely of sentences of the form, "And they set out from X and camped at Y."  But there also a few historical and geographical notes, most notably the mention of Aaron's death at age 123 in verses 38-39, which reminds us again that this is a story of two generations of Israelites.  

Some of the campsites are familiar from previous accounts in Exodus and Numbers.  For example, Kibroth-hattaavah and Hazeroth in verses 16-17 were mentioned together in Numbers 11:35.  But the places recorded in verses 19-35 are new.  

One question that arises is the following:  Where in this account should we place the sending of the spies in Numbers 13, which took place at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran (Num 13:26)?  Different answers have been proposed for this question.  

Rashi proposed that Rithmah in verse 19 is another name for the place where the ten scouts gave their false report.  He associated Rithmah with rethem, a plant associated with deceptive speech in Psalm 120:3-4.  

On the other hand, Abarbanel suggested that the Kadesh from which the scouts were sent was the one in verse 36, making the places in verses 18-35 ones at which the Israelites camped only briefly, so that they didn't rate a mention in Numbers 11-14.  In this scenario Israel spent something like 37 years at that location.  

A third possibility is that the account doesn't mention the place from which the scouts were sent.  As elsewhere in the latter chapters of Numbers, this account may assume previous revelation, with Moses feeling no need to repeat every single detail of Israel's time in the wilderness. In general, this itinerary does not say anything about the nation's sins during the forty years.  The implication is that in the big picture, all the grumbling in the wilderness was not so important.  Through it all God had guided his people faithfully, and the time in the wilderness was important preparation for capturing the Promised Land.  

In the first and third scenarios, the places in verses 18-35 were places that Israel camped during the time between years 2 and 40 in the wilderness, that interval of time about which the Bible tells us so little.  The inclusion of this information sends the message that those years were not meaningless.  Instead, they were a necessary part of the journey.

Seder 118: Numbers 21---New Generation, New Attitude

 In Numbers 21 we can observe some ways in which the younger generation of Israelites differs from the older generation who were adults when they departed from Egypt 39 years before.  While the first generation feared the giants in the region (Num 13:31-33), their children were able to trust God and take them on in battle (see Dt 3:11).  The camp began to operate in a way resembling the ideal picture described in Numbers 10, traveling in the region east of the Jordan and winning battle after battle.  

While the older generation had complained about its dietary options in year 2 of the journey (Num 11), their children were willing to sacrifice in order to reach the Promised Land.  When the king of Arad took some Israelites captive (21:1), the Israelites "vowed a vow to the LORD and said, "If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction' "(21:2).  

The Israelites were willing to forgo the spoils of war in order to rescue the captives, reminding us of Abraham in Genesis 14.  Commentator Michael Morales observes that here the Israelites "are beginning to devote themselves to God, following the exemplary Nazirite path." We can contrast the new generation's victory at Hormah (21:3) with the older generations defeat in that region (14:39-45).  

Impatient to proceed to the Promised Land, the new generation still did some grumbling, but not as much as their parents.  The last wilderness "grumbling incident" recorded in Numbers is in 21:4-9.

Seder 114: Numbers 15:32-36---The Sabbath Gatherer

 The events recorded in Numbers 13-14 take place in the middle of year 2 of Israel's time in the wilderness.  By chapter 20, we are at the beginning of year 40.  Only a handful of events from the intervening years are described in the biblical narrative.  

One is the episode of the "Sabbath gatherer" described briefly in Numbers 15:32-36.  The wording and placement of this incident in the text can help us learn some lessons from it.  

First, note that those who confronted the man for his sin "brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation," wording similar to Numbers 13:26, where the leaders who had visited the land brought back their report.  The similarity in wording invites us to compare Israel's responses to the two incidents.

In Numbers 13-14, Israelites are led astray by the bad report of ten of the leaders.  Many would like to return to Egypt, rejecting God's deliverance and his covenant.  Some call for Moses to be stoned to death and replaced by a new leader.  

On the other hand, the Israelites in Numbers 15 seem to have learned a lesson.  Instead of turning against Moses, they are zealous for the teachings of Moses.  Instead of being led astray by sinners, they root sin out of their midst.  Instead of calling for the stoning of Moses, they stone the violator.  

Second, this incident is mentioned in Numbers 15 immediately after a warning about defiant sins, suggesting that the man's sin fell into that category.  The word for "gathering" in Numbers 15:32, qasas, is an uncommon one in the Bible, appearing elsewhere in the Torah only in Exodus 5:7, 12.  The verses in Exodus are about Israelite slaves in Egypt being forced to gather straw to make bricks.  The similarity in wording invites us to compare the gatherer's activity with that of the earlier slaves.  

The Sabbath commandment that the gatherer was violating is an important sign of the covenant (Ex 31).  By openly gathering instead of resting on the Sabbath, the man was showing, in effect, that he preferred slavery in Egypt to being in covenant with the God who had delivered him from Egypt.  And since the Sabbath also pointed forward to a coming spiritual rest in the land (Heb 4), the man's actions implied a rejection of the land and that future rest.  These things help explain why the man was executed.  He was not someone who had slipped up and accidentally violated the Sabbath.  Instead, he was someone who was rejecting God and opting out of his covenant and Israel's divine calling.  

Third, the placement of the incident shortly after Numbers 13-14 suggests that the gatherer be seen as a representative of the older generation of Israelites who refused to enter the Promised Land.  In contrast, the younger generation was more anxious to get there.  

We can illustrate this contrast with a Jewish tradition about the unnamed gatherer.  It was suggested by Rabbi Akiva that the man was Zelophehad, one of the older generation who had "died for his own sin" in the wilderness (Nu 27:3).  His daughters, part of the younger generation of Israelites, were eager to inherit property in the Promised Land.

Seder 112: Numbers 13-14---Caleb and Hebron

The journey from Sinai was proceeding slowly.  Moses had his eyes set on the good (tov in Hebrew) awaiting them in the Promised Land, but too many of the people were focused on perceived negative aspects of their situation (ra in Hebrew).  The camp apparently spent a month at Kibroth-Hataavah and an extra week at Hazeroth.  The overall mindset of the group would have to change for progress to Canaan to be possible.     

So it was worth it for Israel to stay put for another 40 days while a group of 12 tribal leaders took a tour of the Promised Land.  If they could communicate to the group the attractions of the land, the people's minds could be changed.  

One of those attractions was the nearby town of Hebron, where Abraham had spent much time, and where the patriarchs and matriarchs were buried at Machpelah.  The idea of returning to the place where the bones of their ancestors lay had the potential to capture the imaginations of the Israelites.  

Jewish tradition (e.g., b. Sotah 34b) says that this potential was realized for just one of the scouts---Caleb.  The tradition is based on a couple of biblical passages.  One is Numbers 14:24, where God promises that Caleb's descendants would possess the land "into which he went."  Caleb later was granted Hebron (Joshua 14:6-15).  

The other is Numbers 13:22, where the Hebrew says that "they went up into the Negev, and he came to Hebron."  The conclusion is that "he" refers to Caleb, perhaps the only one of the group who bothered to visit Machpelah.  

Seder 133: Deuteronomy 1---Learning from History

 In the book of Deuteronomy Moses preaches his final sermons to the people of Israel at the end of the fortieth year of the Exodus.  Commentator Daniel I. Block calls this book "the gospel according to Moses."  It is a book often quoted by both Jesus and Paul.  

Deuteronomy belongs to a couple of different genres.  It is a farewell address, with Chapter 33 paralleling Jacob's blessings to his children in Genesis 49.  Jesus' upper room discourse (John 13-16)  is a New Testament farewell address.

Deuteronomy is also a document of covenant renewal, with a structure similar to ancient Hittite suzerain-vassal treaties.  At the end of the 40 years in the wilderness, it is time for the children of the Exodus generation to embrace the covenant for themselves.  The members of the new generation were either young children, or not yet born, when the covenant was ratiifed at Mt Sinai.  

In addressing this generation of Israelites, Moses highlights a few key lessons from the first 39 years of the nation's journey.  First he recalls when they left Mt Horeb (a.k.a. Mt Sinai) in the second month of the second year of the Exodus.  At that point God charged them to go and conquer the Promised Land, whose borders had the potential to extend all the way from the Nile to the Euphrates as they carried out their mission to bless all nations (vv 6-8).

By that point they had grown from an extended family to a small nation, too big for Moses to govern on his own (see Ex 18; Num 11), as God carried out his promise to give Abraham many descendants.  Moses needed a group of godly assistants to serve as judges under him then, and the same thing would be true in the Promised Land.

The Israelites were just a few weeks' journey from their destination when they left Mt Horeb, and Moses had encouraged them to take courage and carry out their mission (vv 19-21).  At that point Moses was asked to send a group of men to scout out the land (v 22).  Such a strategy certainly was not necessary, but it had the potential to get the Israelites excited about the land they would be invading.  (For more discussion, see my post on Numbers 13.)   

The fact-finding trip ended up revealing that the Israelites were not ready to conquer the land.  Instead they would remain in the wilderness for another 38 years, until all who had been counted in the military census of Numbers 1, except Joshua and Caleb, had died (Num 14:29).  

This episode in Israel's history continued to haunt Moses 40 years later.  The sequence of events begun by Israel's rebellion eventually led to Moses himself losing a chance to enter the Promised Land (Deut 1:37).   

Seder 112: Numbers 13-14---The Power of Providential Thinking

 In July 2022, the book ranked number 2 on the Publishers Weekly Religion Nonfiction bestseller list was Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, a book originally published in 1952.  I was a little surprised to read this, having not heard or thought about this title in years.    

Certainly, though, the importance of how we perceive things is illustrated in Num 13-14, where two groups of men saw the same things on their scouting mission to the land of Canaan but drew entirely different conclusions.  

Here it was a matter of recognizing reality rather than just opting to see things positively.  Joshua and Caleb kept sight of the fact that the King of the Universe was with them.  James Whitman has suggested to me that we see in Joshua and Caleb "the power of providential thinking."

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on August 13, 2022, Kyle Kettering reflected on the example of Caleb, one of the most admired figures in the Bible.  The name Caleb means "dog," but the reference in this case is not derogatory.  In the Ancient Near East this name and its cognates were used to designate someone as a loyal servant of a deity.  

Kyle described Caleb as a bulldog who clung to a vision of settling in the Promised Land for 40 years and refused to let it go. 

Kyle noted that all twelve of the delegation on the fact-finding mission to Canaan had seen 

• slavery in Egypt.
• a miraculous Exodus.
• Yahweh on the mountain.
• Yahweh in the tabernacle.
• the goodness of the land.
• the people of the land.

In addition, Caleb saw 

• that he was a leader of Judah, a key tribe.
• the courage of friends fail.
• righteous men go weak.
• the need for immediate action (Num 13:30).
• the need to speak up for reality.
• the potential of the land.
• the power of God forgotten.
• thirty-eight years later, the promise fulfilled.

For us, Kyle concluded, the question is, "What do we see?"       

Seder 112: Numbers 13-14---Sending the Spies

 As Numbers 13 opens, it is the summer of the second year of the exodus and the children of Israel are camped just south of Canaan.  In Numbers 13:1-2, God instructs Moses to send a delegation of twelve leaders, one from each tribe (other than Levi), on a fact-finding mission to Canaan.  

Experienced Bible students know that more details are given in Deut 1:19-23, where Moses recalls this moment from the vantage point of 38 and a half years later.  He remembers that Israelites had requested that he authorize such a mission, and that he had been in favor of the idea. 

One textual tradition, preserved in the Samaritan Pentateuch, places Deut 1:20-23a after Num 12 and before Num 13:1.  This tradition favors a sequence of events in which Israelites had requested a fact-finding mission, Moses asked God about the matter, and God than gave his permission/approval for such a mission.  

In light of how things turned out, the advisability of the plan to spy out the land has been questioned.  Certainly there was no requirement for such a plan.  God was leading them and knew everything they would need to know about their destination.  On the other hand, the plan had considerable upside.  If the twelve leaders liked what they saw and became excited about the prospects of life in Canaan, they would communicate their excitement to their tribes, and the people might unite behind Moses. 

In Num 13:4-15, the tribes are listed in an order that intersperses sons of Leah with sons of Rachel.  The ordering may emphasize the importance of unity among the tribes.

The plan can also be seen as a kind of test.  If the Israelites were ready to enter the Promised Land, they would catch Moses' vision of the good land that lay before them.  If they were not yet ready to enter the Promised Land, they might shrink back in fear, indicating that they needed more training and preparation. 

There was plenty in Canaan to create excitement among the spies.  Early in their trip they reached Hebron, where their forefathers had spent much time.  Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah were buried nearby at Machpelah (Gen 23).  It would have been a thrill to set foot in this special place where their ancestors had lived.  

This was a land where great agricultural production was possible, as evidenced by the huge cluster of grapes that the spies brought back.  

There were also challenges to be faced.  The land contained a number of warring city states with fortifications, and the inhabitants included giants who were descended from the Nephilim, the offspring of angels and people mentioned in Gen 6:4.  These giants might have the assistance of evil supernatural powers.  

Two of the delegation, Joshua and Caleb, were energized by the opportunities they saw. "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it," Caleb encouraged the people (Num 13:30).  

Sadly, ten of the twelve members of the delegation were driven to despair by the challenges ahead..  "We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them," they lamented (v 33).  In their fear they lost sight of the God who was with them.  A midrash on this verse has God saying, "How do you know how you seemed to them?  Perhaps I made you seem to them like angels."  In fact, there was widespread fear of the Israelites among the inhabitants of Canaan, a fear that was still present 38 years later (Josh 2:9).  

The negative report of the spies caused despair in the camp on the night of their return, a night traditionally identified as the Ninth of Ab, a day connected with a number of calamities in Israel's history.  The next day there were threats of mutiny, as many wanted to turn around and go back to Egypt (Num 14:2-4,10).