Numbers 14:1-12--The People Rebel

Numbers 14:1-12
English Standard Version

The People Rebel
14 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. 6 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” 10 Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.

​11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

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Much like at the foot of Mount Sinai, we see the people have been waiting forty days--this time not to hear from God, but to hear from the spies who bring back the report.  The report they bring back is basically "The task ahead is impossible."  Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, agree on the same facts about the land, the people, their fortifications, and their natural resources, but they come to a different conclusion here because they remember to factor God, His commands, and His covenant into the equation--if God has promised it and commanded His people to do something, then He will be faithful to bring about the victory and the blessing, no matter the odds.  This is basically the difference between a works-based salvation and a faith-based salvation.  It is impossible for us to secure our own eternal inheritance which the Promised Land represented to the people.  It is something that God has to secure for us and give to us as a gift.  Only if the LORD fight our battles for us so that He gets all the glory for the victory is the battle over the devil and his angels, sin, death, hell, and the flesh possible.

The people hear the report that there is an impossible task in front of them and they begin to rebel once again against Moses and against the LORD grumbling and complaining that they should have just stayed in Egypt and died there.  They act as if God's salvation is some kind of sick joke to promise redemption and freedom, only to bring them this far to let the Canaanites kill them and for the Canaanites to take their wives and children captive to abuse them and possibly sacrifice them to their gods (the Canaanites had a reputation since early on in Genesis of being the most wicked people groups).  Then the people make a statement to show how much they are rebelling against God--"Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt."  WOW!!!  Did you catch that?  Let's no longer listen to God or the leadership that He's put in place.  Let's no longer follow His Presence or the angel of the LORD, but let us instead show that we know better and we're really in charge of our lives and our destinies, and let's make our own way back through the desert (which they needed God's leadership and provision to make it through this far--so many miracles were already done for them to bring them this far) and beg the people that enslaved us to take us back once again as slaves because the task ahead is difficult.  They'd rather go back to the place where they questioned if God even existed to hear their cries of pain and suffering as they cried out for justice and freedom from their slavery than to know that God exists and follow Him and His leaders into the Promised Land that He had given to Abraham and his descendants by way of eternal covenant more than 400 years before this.

This time, Aaron is on Moses' side.  At Mount Sinai, he was part of the rebellion that built the golden calf and just recently when the people grumbled and complained regarding having no meat to eat, Aaron and Miriam stirred up a rebellion among the people that they wanted to be seen as Moses' equal.  God set them straight though and now they along with Joshua and Caleb stand alongside Moses and Joshua and Caleb give their "minority report" that I referred to last time and today.

​“The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”  (Numbers 14:7-9)

They too said that the land was very good, and they did not deny the existence of fortified cities or giants, but they said that the Lord would bring them into the land and would give it to us.  See, there's the difference--the battle belongs to the LORD.  They tell the people not to fear and not to rebel against the Lord.  They also have no need to fear--for fear is the opposite of faith in that fear comes from putting your faith in the things that you see and know and that you alone can do, but faith believes and hopes in the God whom we can not see that He is faithful to accomplish whatever He promises and that He can do "exceedingly, abundantly above all we can ask or imagine."  I also love how they say that the protection that the Canaanites have had to this point has been removed.  God had already told the people hundreds of years ahead of time that there would be a time for the wickedness and iniquity of the Canaanites to grow and flourish and that God removed Israel from the Land for their own protection so that the Canaanites would not corrupt the people of God.  Now it is time for God to execute judgment on these Canaanites who have been rebellious against God and leading others away from God since right after the Flood--God had already warned the Canaanites with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and just like God was able to completely destroy the enemies of God that day and bring Lot and his family to safety, so it is that God could keep His people save and completely destroy the Canaanites and their fortifications and their enemies and judge them for their wickedness and brutality and their sins against God and crimes against humanity.  Everyone in the area at that time (which we'd probably call "the whole known world") knew of the wickedness of the Canaanites and that they deserved judgment and condemnation, and it was something that made people question God's existence and His sovereignty when they looked to ask, "How can God let the wicked go unpunished for so long?"

How do the people respond to Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb and their message they bring from God?  They try to stone them to death--the punishment for high crimes and misdemeanors (high-handed sins of open rebellion against God and His Law).  It was all the people that were in rebellion that deserved to be stoned.  Think of this almost like a foreshadowing of the people attempting to kill Jesus whom all these people here partially represented.  Moses, the mediator of the covenant and the one that God spoke to face-to-face, Aaron the high priest who made atonement and intercession for his people, Joshua who whose name means "The LORD saves" or "The LORD is our salvation" (the same name as Jesus) and also he is the one that would lead the people into the Promised Land of their eternal inheritance, and Caleb who we don't hear much about now, but we'll talk about him more later as it is probably fair to say that Caleb is one who represents Jesus as "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah: and the rightful heir to the throne.  The glory of the LORD (that is probably the pillar of cloud/fire) once again shows up at the entrance to the Tabernacle in front of all the people and God is going to speak for Himself and declare judgment against the people--just as He did at Mount Sinai.

​11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

God promises to bring the curses of the Law upon these people and to bring the plagues upon them that had come upon Egypt (exactly what He had promised He would do if they rebelled like this and they had promised to never rebel against Him).  He speaks to Moses to once again say that He would destroy everyone who had been unfaithful and make a new nation, greater and mightier through Moses then all the people that were before Him.

We'll see next time that Moses will once again mediate and intervene for the people, even though they don't deserve it.  Why?  For the sake of God's name, character and reputation.  I also think Moses knows that this is not what God had promised--He had made a covenant to the tribe of Judah, not to the tribe of Levi, that the Messiah would come through them.  How then could God keep that promise if He destroyed all the other tribes (unless He is to allow Aaron and Joshua and Caleb and their families to live as well), though this is a test, just like the test of Abraham on Mount Moriah.  Abraham was never meant to sacrifice Isaac on the altar there and Moses was never meant to become the father of a great nation.  The question to both was if they believed God and His covenant enough to do what He commanded even in the face of impossible odds when it didn't make any sense and when it seemed like everyone and everything (maybe even looking to them like God Himself at times) was against them.  We'll see next time how Moses will intercede for the people once again and then after that we'll talk about the judgment that God will pronounce upon the people.  As I said over the last coupled days this was going to be the line that this generation would cross and could not come back from.