Numbers 14:2 "And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!"
It seems a common thing for people to do: that is believe a crowd over a few because they think the sheer numbers make them right.
In this chapter Caleb and Joshua are trying to convince the people that the land is good and that Israel is strong enough to possess the land but to no avail. The people believed the other 68 and were in a state of rebellion. They talk against Moses and Aaron and use God's name in wishing they had died in Egypt or the wilderness. Fear has great power if yielded to.
Needless to say it upset Moses and Aaron and the Lord. A lot of work had gone into getting them to this point. The very door to the promised land 'flowing with milk and honey'.
Verse 12 finds us with the Lord's statement that he is ready to start over with a different people.
"I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they."
Moses prayed to the Lord that he not kill the people because it would cause the Egyptians and others to say that they knew it would happen v15.
v20 and 21 "And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word: But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."
The complaining of the people becomes their sentence. None from twenty and up would enter the promised land except Caleb and Joshua.
v21 "But your little ones which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness."
In verse 40, the people are repentant but too late. They decide now to go fight. First they were told to fight and they would not, now they are told not to fight and they want to. Either way it is transgression. v41 But they went up anyway even after they were told that the Lord was not with them v44
v45 "Then the Amalekites came down and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah."
It was at Kadesh-barnes where the children of Israel could have entered the promised land. But they rebelled and turned to wonder in the wilderness for 40 years. A year for each day the land was searched by the spies. v34
Psalm 72:18 "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things."
key word: bible study
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