Replies

From: Numbers 13:1-2, 25-14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35

Reconnoitering the promised land

[1] The Lord said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,] [2] “Send men to spy out the
land of Canaan, which I give to the people of Israel; from each tribe of their
fathers shall you send a man, everyone a leader among them.”

The spies return

[25] At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. [26] And they
came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in
the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the
congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. [27] And they told him, “We
came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is the
fruit. [28] Yet the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are forti-
fied and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there; [29] The
Amalekites dwell in the land of Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amor-
ites dwell in the hill country; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the
Jordan.”

[30] But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once,
and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it.” [31] Then the men who had
gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people; for they are
stronger than we.” [32] So they brought to the people of Israel an evil report of
the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have
gone, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that
we saw in it are men of great stature. [33] And there we saw the Nephilim (the
sons of Anak, who came from the Nephilim); and we seemed to ourselves like
grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

The rebellion of Israel

[1] Then all the congregation raised a loud cry; and the people wept that night.

God’s new reply

[26] And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, [27] “How long shall this wicked
congregation murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the people of
Israel, which they murmur against me. [28] Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord,
‘what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: [29] your dead bodies shall fall
in this wilderness; [34] According to the number of the days in which you spied
out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty
years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ [35] I, the Lord, have spoken; surely
this will I do to all this wicked congregation that are gathered together against
me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

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Commentary:

13:1-14:45. The general background of the people’s rebelliousness, and God’s
forgiveness (chapters 13 and 14) helps to explain why the Israelites did not enter
the promised land immediately from Kadesh, but had to make a detour and enter
via Transjordan. The cause for this detour was, basically, their faltering obedi-
ence to the Lord, their disdain for the promised land and their nostalgia for Egypt.
In the account given here we find memories that go back to the earliest times,
such as, for example, the leadership shown by Caleb (from the tribe of Judah), a
reconnoitering of the Land which does not extend beyond the zone of Hebron,
and a failed attempt to enter it via the Negeb (cf. 14:39-45).

13:27-29. The spies’ report confirms all God promised about the Land (cf. Ex
3:9). In stressing the strength of the peoples who live there, God’s own strength
is being highlighted, as also his love for his people, because he will be the one
who uproots the present occupiers (cf. Deut 7;1); and, besides, it gives the back-
ground to the protests the text goes on to describe.

The descendents of Anak (v. 28) are the giants who, according to the Israelite tra-
dition, occupy the southern part of Canaan; an explanation of their origin is given
in Genesis 6:1-4.

The Amalekites were a semi-nomadic people who moved to the south of the
Negeb; the Israelites fought with them more than once (cf. Ex 17:8-6). The
Hittites had ruled a huge empire in the 14th century BC, and the Amorites occu-
pied the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. The Jebusites were earlier occupiers of
Jerusalem. The description given of where each of these people lived in the
Land is a very sketchy one.

13:30-33. There are two opposed attitudes here – that of Caleb, who is influ-
enced by faith, and that of the other scouts who, when they came up against
obstacles fail to count on God and in fact question the value of the gift God has
promised, the gift of the Land. This last point is what provokes their open rebel-
lion against God and Moses.

It is often easy to see the obstacles to any human or supernatural project. The
way to deal with these difficulties is not to close one’s eyes but to fight bravely
and faithfully to overcome them. The Israelites were filled with fear at the pros-
pect of having to conquer the Land (because their enemies were so powerful);
so frightened were they that some came to reject and disparage the Land itself.
Something similar happens to a Christian when fearfulness makes him go into
reverse in his efforts to attain perfection. “I know that the moment we talk about
fighting we recall our weakness and we foresee falls and mistakes. God takes
this into account. As we walk along, it is inevitable that we will raise dust; we are
creatures and full of defects. I would almost say that we will always NEED
defects. They are the shadow which shows up the light of God’s grace and our
resolve to respond to God’s kindness. And this chiaroscuro will make us human,
humble, understanding and generous” (Bl. Josemaria Escriva, Christ is Passing
By, 76).

14:1-25. The rebellion reaches its climax; the people want to replace Moses with
someone else, return to Egypt and stone those who encourage trust in God. We
see Aaron backing up Moses, and Joshua sharing Caleb’s enthusiasm (vv. 5-6).
However, it will be the glory and might of God that sorts things out: he threatens
punishment and (the most terrible thing of all) to disinherit the people: he is
ready to create a new people, starting with Moses (vv. 11-12). But once more
Moses pleads on the people’s behalf; this time he uses the strongest argument he
can find – the very reputation of Yahweh among the nations, and his gracious and
merciful nature (according to his own description: (cf. Ex 34:6-7). And God in
fact does forgive his people yet another time; he does not destroy them; but he
has to act in a just way, distinguishing between those who put their trust in him
(like Caleb) and those who rebelled against him as many as “ten times” (v. 22),
that is, totally and deliberately.

14:26-38. Once again the text mentions God’s reaction to the people’s com-
plaints and low spirits, and we are told about the punishment, which takes into
account the census held previously: except for Caleb and Joshua, no one over
twenty will escape the wrath of God. The forty years’ pilgrimage in the desert is
going to start now, and it corresponds to the forty days it took them to spy out the
Land: so it is a severe punishment and it is at the same time proportionate to the
crime. The first to receive this punishment were those who, although they had the
good fortune to actually see the Land, undermined the morale of the others and
instigated their protest – that is, those who, although they in some way exper-
ienced the gift of God, failed to appreciate it out of cowardice and even discred-
ited it to the others.

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States