Tag Archive | rebellion

#2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 60

Feb29

    Day 60 —  We are still in the second month, but we’ve begun a new book! We’ve been reading for over a 1/12 of a year! Praise God! I hope that it’s become a GOOD habit that will continue.

   Day 60 – Numbers 14 – 15, Psalm 90 – (Turning Back, Defeat, Promise, and a psalm of Moses)

Yesterday we saw the rebellious Israel turning from the Promised Land out of fear of the “giants in the land.”

Numbers 14 take up where we left off.  Not only does Israel fear to go into the Land, the want to kill Moses, choose a new leader and GO BACK to Egypt.  (Are you guys crazy??)

Joshua and Caleb plead with the people to enter the land, testifying that their God will surely give them victory. But the people decide to stone them.  Only the appearance of the Shekinah Glory of the LORD stops them. God offers Moses a SECOND chance to become the progenitor of His people, and he refuses, stressing God’s honor and glory that is involved. He begs that God will PARDON their sin according to the greatness of His mercy.

God hears Moses’s intercession for these rebellious ingrates, and pardons them. But there is a consequence they must endure – 40 years of desert wanderings until THAT generation (age 20 and up) all die. Only their teen and young children will have the chance to receive that Promised Land. (Joshua & Caleb and their families will also be exempt.)

So, TURN AROUND and head into that dry and barren land……

But still the people rebel!!  “No, we were wicked,” they confess. “We will go in as directed!”  But it is too late. As they swarm forward – against God’s word, without Him, the Ark of the Covenant, and Moses – they suffer absolute defeat from the Amalekites and Canaanites, giving those pagan enemies a chance to gloat, deride, and shame the LORD God Almighty.

Can’t you just see God dusting his hands of them all and turning his back on Israel? But no. God, our God, is ever faithful to his promises and his people. Instead in Numbers 15, He speaks of WHEN the people of Israel come into the Land to inhabit it, which HE is giving them.

Whoa! Such grace and mercy. Sure, they will endure consequences of their sin. Sure, it will be their children who go in and conquer the land.  But God does not utterly desert them.  He even describes the offerings they will make to Him with the produce of that Land.   He also distinguishes unintentional sins from outright defiance, giving grace to the one and harsh punishment to the other.

He reaffirms the importance of keeping the Sabbath sacred to Him, as He’s directed. And He tells ALL the people of Israel (not just priests) to make tassels on the corners of their garments, with a blue cord binding them, to remind them of all the commandments of the LORD which they are to obey and so be a holy nation go God.

Psalm 90 is the only psalm written my Moses. He writes of the eternality of God, and fact that man is made from dust. (Remember Moses wrote the book of Genesis too.)  He writes of God’s majesty and man’s sins (even the secret ones). Man’s life – in contrast to God’s everlasting existence – is but 70-80 years, and is full of toil and trouble, and ends with a sigh.  He asks God to teach his people how to “number” their days and apply their hearts to wisdom.  Then he ends with pleas for God’s presence and love and power and favor to be with and on his children.

#2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 59

Feb28

    Day 59 —  We are still in the second month, but we’ve begun a new book! We’ve been reading for over a 1/12 of a year! Praise God! I hope that it’s become a GOOD habit that will continue.

   Day 59 – Numbers 11 – 13 (Complaints, Gossip, Rejection)

In Chapter 10, we saw the newly organized and militarized nation of Israel leaving Mt. Sinai on their way to the Promised Land. Ideally, it was a journey of about 11 days, but they are burned, choked, delayed, and stalled in today’s reading, beginning in Chapter 11.

Verse one doesn’t say what they originally complained about, but God responded by sending fire around the perimeter of the camp. The people screamed for help, Moses prayed, and God relented.

Next the “rabble” (mixed group of Egyptians who had come out with the Jews) began to ache and moan for the juices and spices and meats of Egypt.  They were complaining about God’s gracious and nutritious supply of Manna. No work, just pick it up. But they yearned for… Egypt, weeping and wailing like a bunch of babies. (But, oh, am I like them too at times!)

Even Moses seems to have had ENOUGH of these two million cry babies….and did a little crying himself. “I’m not able to carry all this people alone, the burden is too heavy for me.”  “Kill me at once!”  You wonder why God didn’t brush his hands and walk away from the sorry bunch.  Why?  Because of His promises to Abraham, and God doesn’t lie.  Instead He has Moses gather 70 elders of Israel (the beginning of the Sanhedrin?) and puts some of His Spirit on them. They will help carry the burden of the people (because they can’t walk, it seems).

But the people are not done (and either is God!). They whine and moan for meat, tired of “this manna.” And God sends them guail, lots of them, three feet deep, and spread out a day’s journey beyond the edges of the camp.  They ate meat till they were sick of it. And God brought a very great plague on them, and they buried many corpses there. They named the place Kibroth-hattaavah (graves of craving.)

Chapter 12 tells of Miriam & Aaron (Moses’ older siblings) complaining about Him, and God struck Miriam with leprosy. (Why not Aaron too?  Remember he was the high priest of Israel. He needed to say “clean” to offer sacrifices.)  Moses prayed for Miriam and God healed her, but she had to stay outside the camp for the days of ritual cleansing. While she was there, the entire nation remained in one place.

In Chapter 13 Israel reaches the boarder of Canaan, their Promised (by God) Land. God told Moses to send a representative of each tribe in to check out the people and produce of the land.  He does, including Caleb from Judah and Joshua from Ephraim. They are gone 40 days, “testing” the Land and bringing back huge produce to show off.

However, their report is divided.  Joshua & Caleb say “Let’s go!  We can do it!  Let’s take the Promised Land!!”  But the other ten collectively shrink back in fear and tell of the “giants” who made them feel as small as grasshoppers. (A slight exaggeration, guys, don’t you think??)  So…….  what did they do?

(Tune in tomorrow.)