The Lord spoke to Moses,
saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the
people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every
one a chief among them.” (Bemidbar/Numbers 13:1-2; ESV)
In this parasha we read that God initiated the plan to send
in twelve scouts to check out the land of Canaan prior to the planned conquest.
However, later in the Torah, the story reads differently:
Then all of you came near me and said, “Let
us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word
again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall
come.” The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man
from each tribe. (Devarim/Deuteronomy 1:22–23; ESV)
This second account sounds as if God wasn’t involved at all.
Here we are told that the people initiated a plan that Moses approved. This
kind of apparent contradiction is one of the many evidences that the Bible is
not contrived. No one pretending to write true stories would do it this way. At
the same time, there is no problem seeing the differing accounts as describing
various aspects of the same story. It appears that the people did make the
suggestion. Moses, true to form, would have asked God before giving the
go-ahead. So when Moses says, “The thing seemed good to me,” his answer is
based on God’s approval. Therefore, to write, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying…” is an accurate description of
what happened.
So what we have here is a suggestion on the part of the
Israelites to check out the Promised Land before beginning the process to
acquire it. As it turned out, ten of the scouts were overwhelmed by what they
saw. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, could not convince the people that God’s
presence with them was sufficient to overcome the land’s inhabitants. The
people rebelled against God’s directive to take the land at this time, desiring
to appoint a new leader and return to Egypt instead. God then judged the people
by causing them to wander in the wilderness for an additional thirty-eight
years until all the adults of the current generation died out—all except Joshua
and Caleb.
The negative reaction of the people to the scouts’ report
may lead us to conclude that their suggestion to check out the land before
attempting to enter it was a bad idea. The problem with this conclusion is that
God himself approved their plan. But could this be an instance where God gave
the people over to what their unfaithful hearts wanted, allowing them to go
their own foolish way knowing it would not go well? I don’t think so,
especially since thirty-eight years later, before the Israelites successfully
entered the Land, Joshua again sent in scouts. The results were very different
that time.
So the problem was not the strategy, but the conclusion.
However, if God told the people to acquire the land, then what purpose was
there in sending in an advance scouting party? Wouldn’t the effect of their
investigation be nothing more than confusion? Doesn’t faith require as little
information about situations as possible? Why cloud our minds with all sorts of
facts and logistics? Why not just trust God?
To think that true faith requires ignorance with regard to
the practical details of life reveals a misunderstanding as to what true faith
really is. Faith is not a mindless floating through life, oblivious to reality.
It is a dependency upon God resulting in intentional living. The scouts’ issue
was not that they had too much information; it was that they didn’t look at the
information from a perspective of faith in God. The people needed to know the obstacles
and challenges they faced so that they could deal with them effectively. It’s
not that they didn’t require a strategy; it’s that they needed to develop a
strategy based on the truth of who God is and what he was telling them to do.
Faith is not blind. In fact, it requires great clarity. It
is only when we truly trust God that we are able to see the details of life for
what they really are.
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This week’s message
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