Deuteronomy 1: 1 – 46
I wouldn’t go there if I were you
1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. 3 Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him as commandments to them, 4 after he had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei. 5 On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying, 6 “The LORD our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. 7 Turn and take your journey, and go to the mountains of the Amorites, to all the neighboring places in the plain, in the mountains and in the lowland, in the South and on the seacoast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates. 8 See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give to them and their descendants after them.’ 9 “And I spoke to you at that time, saying: ‘I alone am not able to bear you. 10 The LORD your God has multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude. 11 May the LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as He has promised you! 12 How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? 13 Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.’ 14 And you answered me and said, ‘The thing which you have told us to do is good.’ 15 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes. 16 “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. 17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.’ 18 And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do. 19 “So we departed from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as the LORD our God had commanded us. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea. 20 And I said to you, ‘You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. 21 Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.’ 22 “And every one of you came near to me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come.’ 23 “The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe. 24 And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. 25 They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, ‘It is a good land which the LORD our God is giving us.’ 26 “Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; 27 and you complained in your tents, and said, ‘Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28 Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’ 29 “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ 32 Yet, for all that, you did not believe the LORD your God, 33 who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day. 34 “And the LORD heard the sound of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying, 35 ‘Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that good land of which I swore to give to your fathers, 36 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the LORD.’ 37 The LORD was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, ‘Even you shall not go in there. 38 Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39 ‘Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. 40 But as for you, turn and take your journey into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.’ 41 “Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD; we will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.’ And when everyone of you had girded on his weapons of war, you were ready to go up into the mountain. 42 “And the LORD said to me, ‘Tell them, “Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies.” ’ 43 So I spoke to you; yet you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the LORD, and presumptuously went up into the mountain. 44 And the Amorites who dwelt in that mountain came out against you and chased you as bees do, and drove you back from Seir to Hormah. 45 Then you returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD would not listen to your voice nor give ear to you. 46 “So you remained in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you spent there.
As I pondered this chapter I thought about the song, ‘(I Wouldn't Go There) If I Were You’. I kind of added my own lyrics to the song.
Heart, hey we had this talk
This is where we run, don't walk
Away from this place as fast as we can move
Don't you remember what they did?
The last time you let fear in
Did you forget the pain you were put through?
I wouldn't go there if I were you
Heart, stick to beating, stop all this feeling
Ain't you tired of being defeated?
When refusal to obey our Great and Mighty God Yahweh start saying
Don't you know you gotta get on obeying too
\I wouldn't go there if I were you
Try not to think too much about the failures that's been done
How missed fear can make you come unglued
That sad look in your eyes
It's all part of a new disguise
That's the devil wearing that perfume
I wouldn't go there if I were you
Heart, stick to beating, stop all this feeling
Ain't you tired of being deceived?
When the complaints start playing my lips start saying
Don't you know you gotta get on moving too
I wouldn't go there if I were you
To start out in the book of Deuteronomy we are going to quickly review all that has happened to them. One major incident which I am sure you know about is when the 12 spies came back and ten frightened the people who would not trust our Great and Mighty God Yahweh to take care of them. He then informed Moses that since this happened then they would not go into the Promised Land. After the people realized their mistake in not obeying and trusting our Loving God they then thought that they will go into the land. By this time however Moses told them that it was too late to now be obedient. So, they need to turn back and dwell in the wilderness. The people ignored Moses advice and went anyway. I do not need to tell you what the outcome was for this continued disobedience.
From this chapter we may learn certain lessons. First of all is that God has everything dated. In His own time will come about His own will. Secondly that while we may sometimes find ourselves ‘in the wilderness’, often a wilderness of our own deserving, as long as we keep going forward in faith we can be sure that the victories that He gives us there will lead us on into greater victories, so that we will be able to possess all that He has for us in the spiritual realm (Ephesians 6.10-18). And thirdly that in order to obtain those blessings we must walk in the way of obedience to His will as revealed in His word, in His New Testament (Covenant).
1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.
If you have been traveling with us through the Bible then you can very easily see the connection back to Numbers 36.13. This is a continuation of what he has written before. But these words are looking forward. The purpose of the book is said to be in order to present ‘the words of Moses’ spoken to ‘all Israel’ ( Exodus 18.25; Numbers 16.34).
The place where this first speech was given is here carefully described in language reminiscent of someone who knew exactly where it was and was at pains to pinpoint it fairly accurately, and yet wishes to stress that all that they have gone through is behind them. It is intended to bring out the excitement of the situation. Here they were after all that has passed, on the very verge of the Promised Land. They were in ‘Beyond Jordan’, eleven days journey from Sinai, with Paran, Kadesh-barnea and Hazeroth behind them, and the promised land before them. Now, whatever the past, they could begin again.
The indication of the length of journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea of eleven days, contrasts strongly with the fact that it was now the fortieth year and they were still not yet in the land. What then had caused the delay? The reason for it will shortly be brought out.
3 Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him as commandments to them, 4 after he had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei.
It was thirty nine years and ten months after the original Passover (on the fourteenth day of the first month). Moses final purpose was to summarize all the historical events which had revealed Yahweh’s Lordship, to call them to response, and then to outline all the commandments that Yahweh had given them, but this would necessarily involve abbreviation, and not covering all the detail. Thus is the One Who is making this covenant with them introduced. It is Yahweh Who speaks.
This took place after the defeat of Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites (Numbers 21.21-35). The defeat of those kings, which would eventually lead to the possessing of their land, brought home to Israel that the dream was now becoming a reality. They had achieved their first victories in the process of possessing the land, and their hearts were lifted high. Unlike their fathers they were going forth in belief and obedience.
5 On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying,
Moses’ instruction will now commence, recapitulating their history, and describing what Yahweh had commanded. He will first demonstrate how their fathers had been satisfactorily established by Him as a populous nation enjoying righteous government, but had failed through unbelief and disobedience to capture the land He had wanted to give them, and because of that unbelief and their refusal to respond to covenant instructions had been driven from it. Thus they had been sentenced to wander for ‘forty years’ in the wilderness.
But now He commands them to go forward, avoiding their brother nations, (for there was no point in fighting for what could not be theirs). He had already delivered kings into their hands along with their great and mighty cities, so that parts of the land had already become theirs, and they had thus been able to recognize in their own experience what Yahweh could do for them. He wants them to recognize how much they owe to their great Lord. But this is not just a series of battle speeches prior to the great conflict ahead. The whole book is part of a solid covenant which guarantees Yahweh’s activity on their behalf and in return makes firm demands on them, and warns of the consequences of future failure, sealing it with a written document in the presence of witnesses. It can also be seen as composed of mini-covenants incorporated within the larger covenant.
We could also liken it to leasehold of the land. Yahweh Is taking His land from others who have broken the terms of their lease, and is ‘giving’ it to them for their use. But if they too fail to obey the terms of their lease, they too will be expelled.
Please take note in all this how he speaks to them as being one with their fathers. What their fathers had done, they had in some sense done. There was a huge sense of community oneness. Yet they were also their own men. Like their fathers they were faced with a choice. What they must ensure was that they broke the mould, and did not behave as their fathers had done. So in one sense they were one with their fathers, and shared in the same covenant promises, and participated in their experiences, but in another sense they were free to make their own choice. They would not thus be able to blame their fathers for what they decided. This brings out the important point that community responsibility did not necessarily blight all in the community. One generation, once they came of age, could throw off what the previous generation had done.
6 “The LORD our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. 7 Turn and take your journey, and go to the mountains of the Amorites, to all the neighboring places in the plain, in the mountains and in the lowland, in the South and on the seacoast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates.
Moses opens his speech with the covenant name which is the essence of the book, ‘Yahweh our God’. This is what the book is all about, Yahweh their covenant God, Yahweh their only God, Yahweh to Whom they owe all, Yahweh Who spoke to them in Horeb.
He looks back to Yahweh’s instruction at Mount Sinai in Horeb. The One in Whose name he speaks Is ‘Yahweh, our God Who spoke to us in Horeb’, that is, the One Who spoke at Sinai. He Is the One Who had chosen them as His own set apart (holy) people, revealing it especially in that devastating encounter. Horeb includes Sinai and the surrounding area. ‘This mountain’ referred to Sinai, where they had first received the covenant.
At this point Yahweh had told their fathers that they had been in Horeb (at Sinai) long enough. They must leave this place where they had experienced the wonder of their powerful God and were to journey on into the land that He had prepared for them, ‘the hill-country of the Amorites’ (the long range of mountains west of Jordan), and all connected with it; the Jordan Valley (the Arabah), the lowlands (the Shephelah), ‘the South’ (the Negeb, the seashore (the coastal plain), where the Canaanites dwelt, Lebanon, north of Canaan, even to the great river, the River Euphrates.. The vista was large, from the Euphrates in the north to the Negeb. This is regularly given as the land which Yahweh had set aside for them if only they had been willing to take. In a sense it was the range of David’s empire if we include treaty nations, but because of disobedience it never became a reality, and at other times the land promised is depicted in less full terms.
The mention first of ‘the hill-country of the Amorites’, here and also in verse 20, must be seen in the light of verses 43-44 where it was in that very place that the Amorites would defeat their fathers. Thus his hearers must now face up to their victorious enemy in the very place of their previous humiliation and defeat them in turn. Such a victory would then give them confidence for the future. God very often has to bring us back to a place where we have suffered defeat in order that we might triumph and thus restore the balance, and our confidence in God.
We read in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 this, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
When we come across tough trials in our life, our Holy Master God allows us an ‘out’ if we feel that we cannot handle it. However, just as we read here our Holy God will again put the same trial into our lives in the future with His goal that we will become victorious over it.
As Israel had settled down at Horeb, we too can tend to settle down in a place where God has blessed us or revealed Himself to us. But the warning is that we must not do so any longer than God knows is good for us. Rather we must lift up our eyes and ask ourselves, ‘what is it about the future that God is preparing me for?’ Then we must go forward into the ‘unknown’, knowing that our hand is in the hand of God, and that ahead lays great blessing for us as long as we trust Him and obey.
8 See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give to them and their descendants after them.’
To trust and obey had been what God desired of Israel. They had been told to look at the land that was before them, recognizing the great privilege and opportunity that was theirs, and to go forward. This was His land, the very land that Yahweh had sworn to give to their fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to themselves (who were ‘their seed after them’). It was the land where He would dwell among them as their king. Thus the gift of the land is confirmed, and is closely linked with the patriarchal covenants given in Genesis. They were to behold it, and then to go in and possess it, for it was theirs, a gracious gift from their great covenant Lord.
Yahweh was offering them the thing that men then coveted most and would die for, land! What men dreamed about was available to them, a gift from Him. And not only land but His land watched over and protected by Him. And this was not because of their own merit but because He had chosen out Abraham and through him would bless his ‘descendants’, so that through them He might bless the world (Genesis 12.1-3, 7). It was the symbol of a glorious future. And they had reason to know what He could do, for He had done it against the Egyptians.
As we consider this in relation to ourselves we must, however, beware of putting emphasis on the land. The emphasis should be on what the land symbolized, a fruitful and blessed future with God under His Kingly Rule. For us the Promised Land is the heavenly rule to which it pointed, and that should be our aim. We may safely leave the land to those who want it to fight over it. God has moved on to something more important, the war against evil and death.
For what God really guaranteed to Abraham was a glorious and fulfilled future expressed in terms of a fertile country. The writer to the Hebrews saw this for he explained that Abraham was looking for a city with foundations whose builder and maker was God (Hebrews 11.10).
And we may be sure of this. If Israel today are to be blessed it will not be by being in the land, but by their responding to Jesus Christ, their true Messiah, and finding salvation and a heavenly inheritance in Him (Romans 11.26; Hebrews 11.14-16; 13.14). To draw up a great plan for the future of Israel in the physical land of Palestine is to go backwards. That is not to deny that God may have brought some parts of Israel back to Palestine in order that there they may eventually recognize in Jesus Christ their Messiah in some possible great outpouring of the Spirit. It is only to deny that there is to be a future, earthly, Jewish kingdom acknowledged as such by God. Any blessing to Israel must now come through the Gospel, through the Kingly Rule of God as described by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and through the heavenly kingdom where He reigns over all.
He now draws attention to the fact that there was no excuse for the failure of their fathers to possess the land, because Yahweh had made them a great nation with an established and satisfactory system of justice. And they are still so, he confirms. They have become a great and well regulated nation through Yahweh’s goodness.
9 “And I spoke to you at that time, saying: ‘I alone am not able to bear you. 10 The LORD your God has multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude.
God had blessed Israel, and they had grown. Indeed because of the growing largeness of their numbers Moses had had to acknowledge that he had been made to recognize that he could not act as their judge on his own. They had become metaphorically too heavy for him to carry. For Yahweh had multiplied them to such an extent that they were as numerous as the stars in the night sky.
11 May the LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as He has promised you!
He prayed now that Yahweh, ‘the God of their fathers’ would make them a thousand times as numerous as they then were, and bless them as He had promised, in accordance with His promises to the patriarchs. That in it showed that they were without excuse. It was not through any failure of Yahweh to fulfill His promise about the number of descendants that the problems had arisen. Their numbers were continually increasing. They were part of an inevitable process resulting from Yahweh’s sovereign activity which would be irresistible. Their failure lay in themselves.
This tender touch revealed that his unwillingness to bear the weight of their needs was not due to any lack of love, but simply to the requirements of the situation. He had still prayed and longed for the very best for them.
12 How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints?
Indeed his very vision of their success and their rapid growth in numbers had made him recognize that he alone could not bear the weight of having to be judge over them, or of having to deal with their problems and their difficulties. He had recognized that he was insufficient to bear so great a weight. The threefold description - your heavy load, your burden, your disputes -is intended to indicate a complete picture of the problems involved. It had become all too much for him. We too must never be afraid to acknowledge when a task has become too great for us. There is no shame or faithlessness in seeking assistance under God, as long as we stick to our task. Thereby it may be done the better.
13 Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.’ 14 And you answered me and said, ‘The thing which you have told us to do is good.’
So they will remember that he had arranged for them to appoint their own wise men over them, suitable men, men of understanding and high reputation, tribe by tribe, to be heads over them, something which they had recognized was a good idea and which they had agreed to do.
15 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes.
Thus he had set up a system of leaders and men of authority, to act as judges and magistrates, leaders in military activities, and general advisers and mediators, covering all levels of their society from highest to lowest. He was covering every aspect of leadership. Moses was possibly conscious as he said this of the fact that these who were before him also needed to have confidence in their leaders if they were to succeed in what lay ahead. They needed to see them as wise and understanding and qualified for their responsibility. Then they would follow them the more readily.
16 “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. 17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.’
He explains that he had then exhorted all the appointed ‘judges’ (people placed in authority) to judge rightly and fairly, treating equally both native-born and foreigner. They were to have no respect of persons in their judgments, but to judge small and great alike, and to judge righteously. And if they found that they had a case which was too hard for them, or they did not know what decision to come to, they could come to Moses for him to hear the case. They always had him to turn to, as the representative of the King. And the king was always the last court of appeal.
So as a people they had been established in justice and righteousness, and the law of Yahweh had been firmly but fairly applied. They had experienced a level of justice which was the lot of very few outside Israel. And they had become an established people. The point that he is making is that all that could be done for them had been done.
18 And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do.
Having appointed the judges he had told them all the things that they should do. He had outlined to them God’s commandments, and His statutes, and His ordinances, and had made clear what was required of all.
So they had gone forward confident in themselves as a people, and satisfied with their position as a nation. All had appeared ripe for a successful invasion of the land. But as so often happens, it is when we become complacent that danger lurks.
19 “So we departed from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as the LORD our God had commanded us. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea.
The result was that they had been able safely and successfully to negotiate that great and terrible wilderness that lay before them, with its scorching heat and shortage of water, and its many hazards and the hardness of the way, following the ‘highway to the hill country of the Amorites’ that led to the hill-country of the Amorites in Canaan, just as ‘Yahweh their God’ had commanded them. And thus they had come to Kadesh-barnea, an oasis (or group of oases) in the Negeb immediately to the south of Canaan, a place where water was comparatively plentiful.
So everything had appeared successful. They were numerous and plentiful, they were wisely governed, and they had experienced God’s mercies on the way. They should have been ready for anything. The worst was surely behind them, and they had survived.
20 And I said to you, ‘You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. 21 Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.’
Then Moses had turned to them and informed them of their whereabouts. He had told them that they were just south of the hill-country of the Amorites, the mountain ranges that formed the backbone of Canaan. And that it was that land that Yahweh had given them. He had set it before them and all they had now had to do was go forward trusting in Him, and He would give them possession. He would be with them, but He would not do it all Himself. It was their responsibility therefore to have confidence in Him and take possession of it for as it was at the command of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they would not need to be afraid. He Who had proved Himself faithful would be so again. It was Yahweh’s gift. (But they had refused it. Let the present generation therefore not make the same mistake).
In our own case God has many things which He wishes to give us, but sadly we often also refuse them because we will not respond. If we refuse He will not force them on us but will pass them to others.
22 “And every one of you came near to me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come.’
The response of their fathers had been good. They had suggested sending scouts in order to spy out the land so that they would know which way to take and what point to attack from. In Numbers 13.1-3 it is emphasized that it was Yahweh Who commanded the scouts to go forth, but this is simply a reminder that God’s side of things and ours must go hand in hand. It may be that the Israelites in fact first approached Moses with the idea, which he then put to God in order to obtain His commands on the subject. Or it may have been the other way round. But Moses is here summarizing the situation and looking at it from their point of view, seeking to give as good a picture of the failure as possible. He does not want to shame their fathers unnecessarily. Indeed, possibly the plan had first come from Yahweh, and when it had been put to them they had concurred, and even come to him pressing him to carry it out. But considering what had happened in the book of Numbers, and the behavior of the people, we must see this account as being deliberately very tactful. Moses was wooing his listeners. He was trying to win them over to becoming believing and successful.
Very often we find that when God speaks to someone about doing something that person discovers when he goes forward that others have already been coming to the conclusion that it is what they too must do, for God often prompts different men’s minds in this way when He has a purpose to carry out. Thus it is no surprise that they had suggested what God had intended, even possibly in their eagerness interrupting Moses before he had finished. After all, the sending out of scouts was normal military strategy, and they would know it had to be done. They would have had some experience of it in the wilderness. Scouts would have moved in all directions, and especially ahead, so that they were aware of what was happening around them, and what lay before them. Thus they would have expected it in this situation.
‘Let us send men before us.’ Perhaps this is intended to be a little ironic. It was Yahweh Who should have gone before them. Had Yahweh gone ahead success would have been guaranteed. But they sent only men.
23 “The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe. 24 And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. 25 They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, ‘It is a good land which the LORD our God is giving us.’
Moses describes how he had been pleased that the inclinations of their fathers had tied in with God’s demands, and explains how he had taken twelve men, one from each tribe, to act as scouts, and that they went up into the hill-country and came to the valley of Eshcol (possibly in the region of Hebron). All had seemed bright. They were at the border of the land. The land had been scouted and had proved good. All that was now required was to advance with faith in God and begin to take possession of it.
26 “Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; 27 and you complained in your tents, and said, ‘Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28 Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’
In spite of their appreciation of the land, and their recognition that it was a good land, their fathers had refused to go forward. They had rebelled against Yahweh’s command, and had come together in their tents (note the stress on their clandestine muttering) muttering and murmuring in an attitude of total antagonism.
This had resulted in their looking back and declaring that the deliverance from Egypt which had so delighted their hearts two years earlier, and over which they had been so jubilant, had only really occurred because Yahweh ‘hated’ them. The word for ‘hate’ can simply indicate lack of special consideration or an attitude of ‘not-loving’ (Genesis 29.31), rather than positive hatred, but here they were being childish and imputed to God unworthy sentiments. There is a deliberate contrast here on Moses’ part of their faithless attitude as compared with Yahweh’s constant love for them (4.37; 7.7-9) and the love for Yahweh that the covenant demands (6.5). They were seeing Him as the exact opposite of what He actually was to them.
So their fathers had begun to claim that He had simply delivered them from Egypt in order to put them in an even worse situation, indeed, in order to destroy them, because of His malice against them. Better to be in bondage in Egypt than to be dead at the hands of the Amorites!
We are all familiar with how such ideas can spread. For their minds had been gripped by the pictures outlined to them by the scouts, and they had continued to magnify them until they imagined large armies of larger than average people (Numbers 13.32), vast cities with great, insurmountable walls (Numbers 13.28), and even worse, the sons of the Anakim, of fearsome reputation and renowned for their huge build, and even more fearful when seen in the imagination (Numbers 13.33 where the fearful described them as ‘the Nephilim’, and saw them as semi-divine - Genesis 6.4). They had panicked. In their disappointment their imaginations had run riot, and they had asked themselves, ‘what on earth are we being expected to face?’. It was the opposite of faith.
And unless we exercise faith we too are all very good at magnifying difficulties. Let us learn from this never to so build up difficulties in our minds that they become seemingly insurmountable.
How easy it is for us as well to declare ourselves ready to obey God, and then to change our minds as soon as difficulties begin to arise. Better a cozy useless life, we decide, rather than to have to face up to problems and overcome them. But we must beware. It is then we risk losing ‘the land’ for it is as we do face up to these problems that the difficulties begin to melt away before us, even though it might take time.
29 “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
Moses assures them that he had immediately stepped in to give them confidence. Let them lose their fears, he had said. Let them remember that Yahweh would go before them. Let them recognize that it was the same Yahweh Who had delivered them from the Egyptians ‘before their very eyes’, Who would go with them. The same Yahweh Who had protected them in the wilderness, and had borne them as a man carries his young son in the face of difficult circumstances, feeding them with manna and quails and providing them with water, and giving them a father figure in Moses, and He had done it in all the ways in which they went. If they thought back they would recognize that He was dependable in every way. He had performed the miraculous for them against the Egyptians in such a way that they had been able to watch it, and He had continually strengthened and comforted and fed them in their journey through the wilderness. This was indeed the same Yahweh as they had described as a ‘Man of War’ in Exodus 15.3. As long as they fought on His behalf, He would fight for them.
32 Yet, for all that, you did not believe the LORD your God, 33 who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.
But they (in their fathers) had not believed Yahweh their covenant God. God had constantly gone before them in the cloud by day and the fire by night, showing them the way in which they should go and selecting the best camps sites at night, and guiding them to the essential water that was so needed, and feeding them with manna. But they still would not accept that He was capable of defeating these fearsome enemies, by now as large as giants in their imagination. They had refused to believe.
34 “And the LORD heard the sound of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying, 35 ‘Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that good land of which I swore to give to your fathers, 36 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the LORD.’
The result was that after waiting and giving them opportunity to make up their minds fully, which they did in terms of a refusal to go forward, Yahweh was ‘angry’. That is, in His moral righteousness He held their attitude in aversion and determined to punish them.
Thus He swore that not one of the mature men would see or enter the land, with the exception of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who had urged them to go forward, (literally ‘he was completely full in his belief after Yahweh’). He alone of all who had received the command to go forward would see it, (apart also from the leadership itself who had given the command), and what was more, he would receive at God’s hand the very land that he had trodden on, because he, and he alone, had fully followed Yahweh in the infighting among the eleven scouts. Joshua is not mentioned because, having taken his place at Moses’ side, and having had discussions with him as his deputy, he would not be in the argument. It is clear from the narrative in Numbers 13.30 that Caleb had stood firm and alone in the case of the ‘people versus Moses and Joshua’, for Joshua was not seen as ‘of the people’ but as ‘on the other side’. He was known to be Moses’ right hand man. Thus he had wisely kept quiet, and was not standing among them, although later adding his witness. This description tells us that Moses clearly remembers the sight of Caleb standing there on one side with the others baying on the other, a sign of authenticity. He is remembering what he saw.
But it may be asked, ‘What about Joshua?’ The answer is simple. Neither Moses nor Joshua was under examination. Moses was God’s chosen one, and Joshua was his right hand man, ‘standing before him’. They were the ones who had conveyed Yahweh’s commands. At this stage it was fully acknowledged that both of them would enter the land. So the fate of Joshua had not been in question.
37 The LORD was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, ‘Even you shall not go in there. 38 Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
Moses own right to enter the land had also later been lost. He reminds them of what to him was a harsh fact. That he too now could not enter the land. And the reason that he could not enter the land was because he himself had sinned, partly as a result of Israel’s disobedience. This disobedience is the connecting point with the previous verse. For in the end he too was forbidden entry into the land because of his later sin at Meribah (Numbers 20.12) when they were coming to Kadesh for the second time. That was due to the people’s unbelief as well. And it was the possible unbelief of the people that he was speaking to now! Let them remember what their unbelief has done to him, and learn from it.
Such an abbreviated reference fits well with these being Moses’ actual words to the actual people who had been the cause of his behavior. He did not need to remind them of the circumstances. They remembered them all too well. No one who had been present in the camp would forget that dreadful day when the news spread around of God’s judgment on Moses because he had got annoyed at their intransigence. With all their mutterings he was the one figure on whom they knew that they could always rely. And Moses knew that they would still feel guilty about it. But he wants them to recognize that his loss is Joshua’s gain, so that they must faithfully support Joshua in order to demonstrate their sorrow at what they had done to him.
39 ‘Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.
Here Yahweh Is seen as speaking to their fathers. They had said that if they entered the land and fought the Amorites their little ones would become a prey to the enemy (Numbers 14.3). Well, had said Yahweh, as for their young children and their babes, of whom they had said that they would become a prey, paradoxically they would be allowed to enter the land. It would be given to them and they would possess it. Where the fathers had refused to obey, the children would obey. Thereby would Yahweh’s faithfulness be revealed? Rather than becoming a prey they would enter as the victors.
40 But as for you, turn and take your journey into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.’
So God had then given their fathers a new command, to ‘about turn’, and go back into the wilderness from which they had come. They were to turn round and return to the wilderness by ‘the way to the Red Sea’.
41 “Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD; we will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.’ And when everyone of you had girded on his weapons of war, you were ready to go up into the mountain.
The command to ‘about turn’ had brought them up sharp. The thought of the horror of going back into that wilderness had been too much. They had decided that between that and the choice of going forward, going forward and fighting was the best. But it had been too late. They had laid bare their hearts, and revealed their true condition. They could no longer claim that they were going forward in obedience to Yahweh, in faith and loving response to His covenant, they were rather going forward as the slightly better of two desperate alternatives. It would no longer be a march of faith, triumphantly led by Yahweh, but a desperate attempt to do their best in the face of the difficulties and get them out of a hole. They were not now thinking in terms of victory in Yahweh’s name, but of simply doing what they could. But Yahweh’s powerful activity was not available for them in that way, for it revealed that they were just not spiritually and psychologically geared up for all the battles that would lie ahead. It would thus not have been a kindness to let them go forward, for they would not be going forward as Yahweh’s people but as their own people, taking with them all their fears and weaknesses.
So this turning back was really a kindness to them. Had they gone forward they would never have survived all the battles that lay ahead. They would have been slowly massacred man by man for they lacked the faith to achieve. And it was this very requirement of faith, that alone could have ensured success, that humanly speaking Moses was now in Deuteronomy seeking to build up in their successors.
Take a look again at what the people said, ‘All that Yahweh our God commanded us.’ Note their use of the covenant title ‘Yahweh our God’. They had been seeking to suggest that they were responding to the covenant after all, but it had not been so.
42 “And the LORD said to me, ‘Tell them, “Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies.” ’
So Yahweh, Who knew the truth of what would lay ahead, had now commanded them not to go forward. The command was clear. They were not to go forward; they were not to fight, because Yahweh would not be fighting for them. Thus the danger was that they would be smitten by their enemies.
43 So I spoke to you; yet you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the LORD, and presumptuously went up into the mountain.
Moses had given their fathers Yahweh’s command, but as ever they had been disobedient. Having rebelled when He said ‘Go forward’, they had now rebelled when He said, ‘About turn’. Whatever God said ‘do’ they would not listen to. They ‘were presumptuous and went up into the hill country’. They were presumptuous because they went up without God’s permission, indeed in spite of His refusal to allow it. They would certainly be without their general Joshua. They would be without Moses whose faith and confidence had previously sustained them in battle. They would be without the staff of God which symbolized His powerful activity on their behalf. Thus they would be ill prepared for what lay ahead. They had really only gone because they could not bear the thought of facing the wilderness again. They just assumed that somehow God would help them as He always had. But they forgot that they were no longer the people that God had brought up to this point. Their hearts had become set in unbelief.
44 And the Amorites who dwelt in that mountain came out against you and chased you as bees do, and drove you back from Seir to Hormah.
The net result could only be disaster. They had met the Amorites on their own territory, men who had had plenty of experience at defending it and knew every inch of the ground, while their own leaders were inexperienced. Thus the Amorites had come out like a swarm of bees and had driven them back so that they were beaten down in Edom (Seir), and then fled to Hormah. ‘As bees do’ probably refers to a descending swarm. All had known of cases of people who, being attacked by a swarm of bees, could not get away from them. And that was how it had felt before these fierce Amorites who did not stop until they were well clear of the hill country. ‘Seir’ would be the part below the Dead Sea. Hormah was probably a town north east of Kadesh. It means ‘devoted to destruction’ and may therefore refer to a ruin, the name was given to it when the Israelites captured it and dedicated it to destruction.
Thus on entering the land in unbelief they had immediately again been driven out of it. There had been no place in Yahweh’s land for unbelief, a lesson that was also important for the future. For God was not bringing them to the land just for their own good, but because He had a purpose to perform through them, and if they were not fitted for that purpose they would be excluded.
45 Then you returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD would not listen to your voice nor give ear to you.
The result had been deep sorrow, so much so that they came and wept before the Tabernacle, ‘before Yahweh’. But they had wept in disappointment, not because they were repentant of how they had let Yahweh down. So Yahweh did not hear, for their hearts and intentions were not right, and they had disobeyed Him. His ears were thus now closed to them. His head was turned away. We may think that we can continue praying when we have been disobedient to God, but the truth is that until we truly repent He will not listen to us. The word He wants to hear is a genuine ‘sorry’, and for these it was not possible. Their hearts had become set in the wrong direction. They might express remorse, but they would not be ‘sorry’.
46 “So you remained in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you spent there.
Thus for many days they had remained at the oasis at Kadesh. Moses could not remember how long it was, and so he adds ‘for the number of days that you abode there’.
