Numbers 13, Reviewing Kadesh Barnea (1)

A study of Hebrews 3-4 requires that one go back and review the story of Israel’s refusal to enter the land in Numbers 13-14.  Let’s do that today.

·       13:1-25: Having arrived at Kadesh, the LORD tells Moses to send out 12 men “to spy out the land I am giving you.”  In Moses’ record of this event (Deut. 1:19-46) he says that the people came and asked for men to check out the land.  Reconciling the two is not hard.  The people asked, Moses thought it was a good idea and got confirmation from the LORD to do it.  He would not have done it if the LORD had not commanded it.  In that sense it was like the situation years later when the people demanded a king, and the LORD commanded Samuel to anoint Saul, a king who would fail, but a king who met the demands of the people.  In both situations the people should have learned something about waiting on the LORD.  My thought on this comes from James 1:12-18.  God did not tempt Israel to sin.  Rather He tested them that they might be approved and receive the reward of the land, which was a good and perfect gift for Israel.  Instead, Israel was drawn away by their own desires and enticed.

o   The selection of the 12 “spies” was different than the later spies Joshua sent to check out Jericho.  Joshua’s spies were more like what we think spies should be: people working with the military.  But at Kadesh Moses selected one from each tribe, “men who were heads of the children of Israel” (13:3).  Good Americans would have liked this approach, providing equal representation for each tribe.  But Israel was not a “democracy” or, for that matter, a “republic.”  It was to be a Theocracy.  Joshua sent the spies to Jericho, but then the LORD gave the instructions as to how to take the city.  At Kadesh, the vote of the spies was 10-2 that “we can’t do it.”  Only 2 said, “If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us” (14:8).  The question had become, “shall we go into the land,” rather than, “how shall we take the land.”

 ·       13:26-33: The spies returned, and the first thing they said was that, just as the LORD had said, it was a land flowing with milk and honey.  They even brought back some samples, a picture that has become the icon for prosperity in Israel.  It was a unanimous vote (v26-27).  But the next words were, “nevertheless.”  “Nevertheless, the people are strong, the cities fortified and large, and besides that, you won’t believe it, we saw giants, the descendants of Anak!” (my paraphrase of v28).  Caleb tried to put a stop to this thinking before it got out of hand (v30).  He didn’t disagree with the assessment of the 10 but said, “we are able.”  The 10 said, “we are not able” (v31) and then gave a bad report, which means they exaggerated the report: the land devours its inhabitants, all the people are huge, and we were like grasshoppers in our sight and in their sight.

One last thing to note on Num. 13 is that there was no report from the spies that the people of the land feared this people who had come from Egypt to Kadesh Barnea.  When Joshua’s spies returned, that was their report.  The people of Jericho had heard of how they left Egypt and of what they did to the two kings on the east side of the Jordan River.  

There is uncertainty as to the location of Kadesh Barnea but this is the traditional site in the Sinai region of Egypt.