Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, tore their clothing. They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!” But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb. Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle. And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them? I will disown them and destroy them with a plague. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are!” But Moses objected. “What will the Egyptians think when they hear about it?” he asked the Lord. “They know full well the power you displayed in rescuing your people from Egypt. Now if you destroy them, the Egyptians will send a report to the inhabitants of this land, who have already heard that you live among your people. They know, Lord, that you have appeared to your people face to face and that your pillar of cloud hovers over them. They know that you go before them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Now if you slaughter all these people with a single blow, the nations that have heard of your fame will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring them into the land he swore to give them, so he killed them in the wilderness.’ “Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed. For you said, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.’ In keeping with your magnificent, unfailing love, please pardon the sins of this people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.” Then the Lord said, “I will pardon them as you have requested. But as surely as I live, and as surely as the earth is filled with the Lord’s glory, not one of these people will ever enter that land. They have all seen my glorious presence and the miraculous signs I performed both in Egypt and in the wilderness, but again and again they have tested me by refusing to listen to my voice. They will never even see the land I swore to give their ancestors. None of those who have treated me with contempt will ever see it. But my servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He has remained loyal to me, so I will bring him into the land he explored. His descendants will possess their full share of that land. Numbers 14:6-24
When Moses
sent a dozen men into the Promised Land as an advance scouting party, ten of them
came back with a fear-filled report that the land was too strongly-defended to
possess; they were intimidated and advised Moses to take a pass on God’s
plan. Caleb and Joshua brought the minority
report that the land was everything God had said it was, and they should press
on. Standing as two against ten could
not have been fun, but the real party started when the whole nation wanted to
stone Caleb and Joshua.
A millennium-and-a-half
later the Apostle Paul would remind the Church at Corinth[iii]
that the nation’s fear and lack of faith consigned them to desert wandering for
40 years, the bodies of all the unbelievers scattered all over that
wasteland.
The point
isn’t strained here; Caleb stood with Joshua, and the two stood before the
whole nation, pleading with them to trust the LORD. It wasn’t easy, especially with the death
threats…but, in the end the nation with rocks in their hands wandered for the
next 40 years, until all the unbelievers died-off. Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, were still
strong four decades later, leading the new generation into Canaan-land.
For You Today
Faith in
God is always confirmed and vindicated, no matter how many votes are cast with the
majority report of unbelief.
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[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New
Living Translation©
[iii] 1 Corinthians 10:5
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