Recon - Numbers 13

According to TB chapters 13 and 14 go back to back together but they are both pretty long so I’ll separate them here. At this point Israel is still less than 2 years removed from leaving Egypt and it’s time for the people to start the plan to take the land of Canaan. The KJV says that God was the one who told Moses to send spies to the land of Canaan and implied that it was some sort of like military reconnaissance, at least that’s how I interpreted it. TB suggests that that interpretation is incorrect for a couple of different reasons. First, he says that it isn’t God who commands Moses to send the scouts, but instead it is the people who want to go check out the land and Moses asks God’s opinion on it and God says that yeah that’s fine. TB likened it to driving around a neighborhood before making an offer on a house. Secondly, TB notes that this almost certainly is NOT a military expedition for the purposes of planning because in all future military endeavors, the Israelite army only sends 2-3 men out as scouts. This further supports the whole “this isn’t for military planning purposes but instead is about convincing the people that the land promised to them by God would be good enough for them to settle in.” Additionally, TB notes that if this was in fact a military mission, they wouldn’t have sent out the tribal leaders, but instead soldiers trained specifically for that.

Moses selects 12 men to go explore Canaan and to come back and give report about the condition of the and these twelve men, one from each tribe, are major tribal leaders and they are all listed. The only thing that I think is significant here is that Joshua is is also called to go on the trip, but he’s listed as “Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.” TB has a blurb about Joshua’s name here and why it’s changed and what it means, I’m not going to go into it but it’s there for anyone who is interested.

Moses gives them the charge to go to the land, see “what it is,” to see if the people “be strong or weak, few or many; if the land is good or bad, what the cities look like, if they are tents or strong holds, if the land can produce crops and to bring back some food as examples if possible. The group left and were gone for 40 days and came back to report to Moses and Aaron and to all the rest of the people who were gathered around to hear. The report of the land was great! The land “floweth with milk and honey, and this the fruit of it.” And the example was a strand of grapes so big they had to be carried by two men carrying sticks, TB points out that this is an exaggeration. But the problem is that 10 of the 12 men reported that “there we saw giants… and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers.” They people inhabiting the land were so large and strong and mighty and powerful that these scouts thought that they would simply be crushed while trying to displace the Canaanites from the land.

These people had spent the last 2-3 years witnessing the miracles that God provided for them, the miracles of the plagues that got them out of Egypt, the miracles that followed them in the desert as protection and guides, the miracles of food and water falling from the sky and flowing out of the rocks. Even with all that 10 of the men were like “there’s no chance that we can beat them,” they said, “we be not able to go up against the people; for the are stronger than we.” In contrast, the two men who didn’t give an “evil” report were Caleb and Joshua, and Caleb’s response to that same information was “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.” Caleb had the same information that these other guys had and not only was he not afraid, he was like “come on guys let’s go get these blessings right now!” Such a strak contrast between the two opinions.

To be fair, offensive warfare is so much more difficult than defensive, and the Hebrews surely did face an enormous difficult challenge in trying to remove whole civilizations from their homes in order to take it over for themselves. By conventional wisdom it probably was a suicide mission. The only way that they could have won was through the power of God in delivering it to them. I’ve often wondered why it was ok to simply cast out these people from the Promised Land because aren’t they God’s children too? Nephi answers this for us in 1 Nephi 17:33-35 which says, “And now, do ye suppose that the children of this land, who were in the land of promise, who were driven out by our fathers, do ye suppose that they were righteous? Behold, II say unto you, Nay. Do ye suppose that our fathers would have been more choice than they if they had been righteous? I say unto you, Nay. Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God. But behold, his people had rejected every word of God, and they were ripe in iniquity. And the fulness of the wrath of God was upon them; and the Lord did curse the land against them, and bless it unto our fathers; yea, he did curse it against them unto their destruction, and he did bless it unto our fathers unto their obtaining power over it.”

The people who were living in the Promised Land at the time were wicked and ripe for destruction and the people of Israel were ready to be granted blessings due to righteousness and obedience. What’s ironic about this whole thing is that the men who freaked out because they thought victory was impossible were completely unaware of the inhabitants of Canaan being ripe for destruction from God. I wonder how many times in my own life a situation has been perfected for my good in numerous ways and because I can’t see all the ways I freaked out like these guys did. I mean, I think that eventually I will do what I’m told, but it takes a lot of convincing to get me to that point. This situation with my family is a perfect example. I have accepted God’s position on it, but it took a lot to get me here, a lot of kicking and screaming, and I’m still devastated about it. But I’d like to think that I comply and trust God eventually, even if it takes a while to get there, and God knows that it will take me a while and exactly what I need to get there. And I don’t get the impression that he’s angry that it takes me so long because it seems like he provides me everything I need at the exact stages that I need it, so he knows and he works with me on it.