THE DOOM OF THE
UNBELIEVING
Numbers 14
THE spirit of revolt which came to a head in the proposal to put
Joshua and Caleb to death was quelled by the fiery splendour that
flashed out at the tent of meeting; but disaffection continued, and
Moses realised with horror that immediate destruction threatened the
tribes. Jehovah would smite them with pestilence, disinherit them,
and raise up a new nation greater and mightier than they. Moses
himself should be the father of the destined race.
The thought was one at which an ambitious man would have grasped;
and to entertain it might well seem a good man’s duty. In what
better way could one of earnest and courageous spirit serve the
world and the Divine purpose of grace? Moses stood as a
representative of Abraham, to whom the promise had been first given,
and of Jacob, to whom it had been renewed. If the will of Heaven was
that a fresh beginning in the old succession should be made, the
honour was not lightly to be put aside. Moses now saw, as Abraham
saw, a great possibility. The Divine purpose did not fail, though
Israel proved unfit to serve it; in the field of a more instructed
age that magnificent hope which made Abraham great would blossom
more generously and yield its fruit of blessing. With the sense of
this possible honour to himself, there came, however, to Moses other
and arresting thoughts. For Abraham had become great by sacrifice,
and only one spiritually greater even than he could found a worthier
race. Did Moses not think of that scene on Moriah, when the son of
the promise lay stretched on the altar, and feel himself inspired
for a sacrifice of his own? Yet what could it be? Nothing but the
silent inward refusal of that great honour which was being put in
his power, the honour of becoming even higher than Abraham in the
line of originators. True, it seemed that necessity was laid on him.
Yet might not Jehovah intervene on Israel’s behalf as once before on
Isaac’s when the moment of his death had almost come? Not to
sacrifice Israel was the call Moses heard when he listened in the
silence, but to sacrifice his own hope, though it seemed to be
pressed on him by Providence. And this began to prove itself the
necessity. On the one hand he could not hide the fear that even if
the Israelites were settled in Canaan a long period of education
would be required to fit them for national life and power; after
many generations they would be still incapable of any high spiritual
task. But if Israel perished, what would happen? The faith of
Jehovah, already established as an influence in the world, would
fall into abeyance. When doom fell on Israel, the Egyptians would
hear of it, Canaan would hear of it. The desert, the valley of the
Nile, the hills of the Promised Land, would ring with the exultant
cry that Jehovah had failed. And then-how long would the world have
to wait till this seeming defeat could be retrieved? Century after
century had passed since Abraham left his own land to fulfil the
vocation of God. Century after century would have to pass before the
sons of Moses could attain to any greatness, any power to move the
world. The instrument Jehovah had meanwhile to use was imperfect;
the tribes were not like a strong two-edged sword in the hand of the
King. Yet they existed; they could be used, and Divine might, Divine
grace, could overcome their imperfection. Ere the world grew older
in ignorance and idolatry, Moses would have the heavenly purpose
wrought. For this he will renounce, for this he must renounce, the
honour possible to himself. Let Jehovah do all.
His choice made, Moses intercedes with God. The prayer has an air of
simple anthropomorphism. He appears to plead that Jehovah should not
imperil His own fame. The underlying thought is partly concealed by
the form of expression; but the meaning is clear. It is the dawning
power of the religion of God for which Moses is concerned. He would
not have that lost to men which by the events of the exodus and the
wilderness journey has been so far secured. Egypt is half persuaded;
Canaan is beginning to see that Jehovah is greater than Anubis and
Thoth, than Moloch and Baal. Was that impression to fade and to be
succeeded by doubt, possibly contempt of Jehovah as Israel’s God? He
had brought His people into the wilderness, but He could not
establish them in Canaan; therefore He slew them: if that were said,
would not the loss to mankind be incalculable? "Thou, Jehovah, art
seen face to face, and Thy cloud standeth over them, and Thou goest
before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by
night." The astonished lands have seen this; let them not return
with greater trust than ever to their own poor idols.
In the report of Moses’ intercession words are quoted which were
part of the revelation of the Divine character at Sinai: "Jehovah
slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, forgiving iniquity and
transgression, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and
fourth generation." The prayer quoting these latter clauses is
abundantly sincere; and it proceeds on the belief that mercy rather
than judgment is the delight of God. The greatness of the Divine
compassion, already shown time after time since the people left
Egypt, is still relied upon. And the desire of Moses is granted so
far as it is in harmony with the character and purpose of God. "Thou
wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of
their doings" {Psalms 99} Jehovah says, "I have pardoned according
to My word." The national sin is not to be visited with destruction
of the nation. No pestilence shall exterminate the murmurers, nor
shall they be left without the guidance of Moses and of the cloud to
melt away in the plagues of the wilderness. But yet the power of
Jehovah shall be shown in their punishment; the manner of it shall
be such that the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
The men who came out of Egypt and have tempted Jehovah ten times
shall never see Canaan. Their carcases shall fall in the desert. For
forty years shall the Israelites wander as shepherds till the evil
generation shall have disappeared.
Divine Providence judges the pusillanimity of men. Their fear
deprives them of that which is offered and actually put within their
grasp. They prove themselves incapable when the time of decisive
endeavour comes, and a new generation must arise before the ripeness
of circumstance again opens the way. The case of the Israelites
shows that rebuke and disappointment are necessary in the Divine
discipline of human life. Defects of character, of faith, are not
overcome by a tour de force in order that the development of a
heavenly purpose may be hastened. It would indeed cease to be a
heavenly purpose, if with easy forgiveness God gave miraculous
success. The result would be no gain in the long run to any good
cause. If men fail, God can wait for others who shall not fail. We
are apt to forget this; we think that we show proper trust in the
fulness of Divine pardon when we insist that men who have erred and
been forgiven, who have faithlessly missed their opportunity and
passed through penitence into new zeal, shall be hurried on to the
duties they refused to face. But now, as in the times of Israel, the
law of adequate discipline forbids, the law of punishment forbids.
Humanity is not to be cheated of its Divine instruction, nor shall
any pretext of generosity or necessity be urged in order that
certain men may enter a Canaan they once refused to possess. We see
a term set to a probation.
Does it appear an inordinate punishment, this denial of Canaan to
the unbelieving? There is no need to think so. For the men and women
who held back in doubt of God, the wilderness, quite as well as
Canaan, would serve the main end, to teach them trust. Life went on
still under the protection of the Almighty. The desert was His, as
well as the land flowing with milk and honey. Yea, in the desert
they had, being such as they were, fewer temptations to question the
power of God and their own need of Him than they would have found in
the land of promise. May we not say that men who had been so ready
to receive an evil report of the land would have been confirmed in
their doubt of Jehovah if they had been allowed to cross the
frontier? Better for them to remain in the desert that made no
pretence to be anything else, than to enter Canaan and find excuses
for calling it a desert. No individual was prevented from learning
to know God and trust Him; of that we may be sure. The way of
instruction was that of penitence and sorrow and continued
hardships. But there would have been no other way for those
unbelievers even if they had entered on the promised inheritance. In
Canaan, as well as in the desert, they would have had to learn
contrition, to advance their moral life by means of temporal
hardships and defeat.
And there was a limitation of the judgment. Only those from twenty
years old and upward were included. The young men and young women,
presumably because they had not bewailed their lot and cried against
Moses and God, having too much of the hopeful spirit of youth, were
not condemned to die in the wilderness. A difference was there, and
by the terms of the deliverance was made clear, which often comes to
light in human history. The old, who should know most of the
goodness of God and His unfailing power, draw back; the young and
inexperienced are ready to advance. Men who are occupied with
affairs tend to think that their wise management brings success, and
they place Divine Providence secondary to their own wisdom. Shall we
be able for this? they ask. Does this approve itself to us as men of
the world, responsible men? If not, they think it would be folly to
go forward even at the call of God. But the young are not so wise in
their own experience; they are in the mood to dare: the young and
the trustful-men like Joshua and Caleb, who have learned that power
and success are of God, and that His way is always safe. To
calculate and act on the basis of expediency is not the failing of
the young. Let us pray for men who have faith in the future of
humanity and of the Church to stand forth and rally about them the
youths, not spoiled by over-wise theories of life, who have still in
their souls the heavenly instinct of hope.
Caleb has here and elsewhere in the history peculiar honour, all the
more remarkable that he was, properly speaking, no Israelite. The
narrative at this point associates his family with the tribe of
Judah. But Caleb was a Kenizzite; {Num 32:12} and Kenaz appears in
Gen 36:11; Gen 36:15, as an Edomite or descendant of Esau. At what
time this particular Kenizzite family joined the expedition of
Israel we have no hint. As yet, however, there was no intermarriage;
and it should be noticed that the district which in consideration of
his fidelity Caleb has for his inheritance in Canaan is the same as
was occupied by Kenizzites before the conquest. There is, of course,
no improbability in this; it may rather appear to give proof of the
genuineness of the narrative. Caleb joins the Israelites, attaches
himself to Judah in the camp and on the march, proves himself a
faithful servant of God and of the host, and has the promise of his
forefathers’ inheritance when the distribution of Canaan shall be
made. He reported favourably of the region about Hebron; and Hebron
became his city, as we learn from Joshua 14.
In contrast to the special promise made to Joshua and Caleb is the
fate of the other ten whose report brought "a slander upon the
land." These "died by the plague before Jehovah." It would seem that
before Moses appealed to God on behalf of the people, the pestilence
was spreading which might have swept the Israelites down like
Sennacherib’s army in after-times. And the ten false spies had been
among the first to die. Little indeed know men how soon providence
will convict them of their faithlessness and rebellion. Let us save
our lives, they say, by holding back from duties that involve
difficulty and danger. Why advance where we are sure to fall by the
sword? But the sword finds them nevertheless, or the plague lays
hold of them; and where then is the life they were so careful to
preserve? The men of Israel who said, "Let us not go to Canaan, but
return to Egypt," neither see Canaan nor Egypt. They gain nothing
they desire; they lose all they were so careful to keep.
Suddenly at Num 14:40 we are brought to a new development. The
people no sooner hear their doom than they resolve to take the
future into their own hands. They acknowledge that they have sinned,
meaning, however, only that they have fallen into a mistake the
consequences of which they had not foreseen; and with this
inadequate confession of fault they decide to make the advance into
Canaan forthwith. They do not see that instead of recovering their
hope in God by any such attempt they will really deepen the
alienation between themselves and Him. Submission is indeed hard,
but it is their one grace, their one duty. If they press on into
Canaan, they must go without the Lord, as Moses warns them, and they
shall not prosper.
It is not enough when men have discovered an evil heart of unbelief,
and turned again in repentance, that they take up the thread of life
which has become ravelled. Perverse faithlessness cannot be cured by
a sudden decision to resume the duty which was abandoned in fear.
The refusal was no superficial thing, but had its source in the
springs of will, the character and habits of life. We are apt to
judge otherwise, and to suppose that we can alter the whole current
of our nature by a single act of choice. Today the trend is strongly
in one direction, along a channel which has been forming for many
years; tomorrow we think it possible to become other men, strong
where we were weak, determined upon that which we abhorred. But
something must intervene; some change must take place deeper than
our impulse. We must have the new heart and the right spirit; and in
proportion to the gravity of the situation and the importance of the
duty to be done must the time of discipline be long. The wilderness
wandering had to be for many years because the temper of a whole
people was to be altered. For a single person a far shorter ordeal
may suffice. He may pass through the stages of conviction,
repentance, and new creation in a few weeks or even days. Nay,
sometimes the regenerating Spirit brings about the change apparently
in a moment. Yet the rule is that stability in faith must come
slowly, that the way of trial cannot be hastened. A great task,
therefore, the right doing of which is necessary to the open
vindication of religion, may not be gone about in a sudden change of
mind. We are not to take lightly, into untried hands, the massive
plough of the kingdom of God.
In Canaan, the Amalekites and Canaanites, Moses said, would dispute
the advance of Israel, -Amalekites skilled in desultory war,
Canaanites long trained in military art. These would fight without
any sense of the support of the true God. But how would the Hebrews
speed, meeting them on the same footing? The contest would be then
between human skill and daring on either side; and there could be no
doubt as to the issue. Bands of men acquainted with the country,
disciplined in war as the tribes of Israel were not, fighting for
their fields and homes with a defence of walled cities to fall back
upon, would certainly win. If the Hebrews went up, it would be
without the sign of Jehovah’s presence; the ark of the covenant
could not be borne with the army on such an expedition. Their
attempt, being presumptuous, must end in disaster.
Too often the conflicts in which the Church is involved are of this
very kind. There is profession of high moral design and Christian
principle. Ostensibly it is for the sake of true religion that
something is undertaken.
But in reality the affair is not one that belongs to the essence of
faith. It is perhaps a question of prestige, of exclusive claim to
certain rights or moneys, the very last thing a Christian church
should insist upon. Then the contest is between human diplomacy and
resolution, whether on the one side or the other. It is idle to call
a campaign like this a holy war. The ark of the covenant does not
accompany the army that calls itself Jehovah’s. As Israel found that
even Amalekites and Canaanites were too strong for her, so has the
Church often found that men whom she termed unbelievers were
superior to her in the arms she chose to use. Again and again have
her forces had to retire smitten even unto Hormah. For those who are
called unbelievers and atheists have their rights; and they will
always be able to maintain their rights against a presumptuous
church which "goes up into the mountain" without the sanction of its
living Head.
It was no general advance of the tribes that on this occasion ended
in defeat. The solid, resolute march of the whole people was a very
different thing from the half-hearted sally of some hundreds of
fighting men. When the host of the Israelites, men, women, and
children, moved together, the men of war had support in the sympathy
of those they defended, in the prayers of the priest and of the
people. They were nerved to play the part of heroes by the thought
that all depended upon them, that if they failed their wives and
children would be put to the sword. And again there is a parallel in
the advance of the Church against her adversaries. If the officials
only go out to fight, if it is their affair, their expedition, if
there is no strong onward movement of the whole host, what is there
to give support to the enterprise? The fighting men may seem to have
heart enough for their battle; but the underlying feeling that they
are not engaged in the defence of the Gospel itself, or in guarding
any position on which the power and success of the Gospel depend,
must always, and properly, weaken their arms. There is all the
difference in the world between an ecclesiastical battle and the
contest for vital faith. And it is a matter of regret that so much
of the strength and ardour of good men should be wasted in downright
earthly fighting, when the feeling of the Church as a whole is not
with those who claim to be her army. Let all the tribes, that is to
say all the churches of Christ that are of one mind as to vital
truth, advance together, without jealousy, without mutual contempt,
and the opposition to Christianity will practically melt away.
From the twenty-first chapter, which appears to open with a
reminiscence of the first attack on Canaan, we gather that one of
those who opposed the expedition was the Canaanite King of Arad. The
advance appears therefore to have been made by way of Hezron and
Beersheba. The mountains visible from the camp were likely the chalk
hills beyond the "Ascent of Akrabbim." These passed, probably near
Hezron, a valley opened, stretching away towards Hebron. The
Amalekites gathering from every wady, and the Canaanites from the
ridge to the right, where Arad lay, seem to have fallen upon the
Hebrews with a sudden onset. While many escaped others were slain or
taken captive. A keen memory of the defeat survived; but it was not
till long afterwards, in the days of the judges, that the
strongholds of the region were reduced.
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