39 THE SPIES' REPORT

14:1 That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” 5 Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. 6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”.

At the Lord’s  instructions, Moses sends 12 spies into Canaan as Verse 1 and 2 say, but, interestingly, this is in response to the people’s request according to Deuteronomy 1:22 and 23 which say, “Then all of you came to me and said, ‘Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.’ The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe.” Was it from doubt or was it wise preparation? Both are possible. The narrative is not clear. They would not take God’s word that it was a good land, and that He would, without fail, put them in possession of it. They could not trust the pillar of cloud and fire to show them the way to it, but had a better opinion of their own investigations than of God’s wisdom. Was it wisdom or doubt for them to spy out a land which God Himself had already spied out for them; to enquire the way into it when God himself had undertaken to show them the way? But in this way we ruin ourselves if we give more credit to reports from people than to divine revelation. We walk by sight, not by faith. In any case, God was in no way a partner to the sin that followed; the sending of 12 spies was not the cause of their eventual sin of doubt. If the spies had done their duty, and the people theirs, it might have been the confirmation of their faith and wise preparation. The major part, 10, of the spies discourage the people from going forward to Canaan and for putting so much confidence in the judgment of men, justly are the Israelites left to the temptation to further doubt when they had had the word of God to trust. They could not deny but that the land of Canaan was very fruitful; the bunch of grapes they brought with them was a visible demonstration of this as recorded in verse 27, “They gave Moses this account: ‘We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.’” God had promised them a land flowing with milk and honey, and the doubting spies themselves acknowledge that it is such a land. Even out of the mouth of adversaries God will be glorified and the truth of His promise proven. Yet afterwards they contradict themselves, when they say what is recorded in verse 32, “And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.’” This is as if to say, though it had milk, honey and grapes, it is not available to us. They represented the conquest of it as altogether impracticable, and that it was to no purpose to attempt it. The people are strong as verse 28 says, “But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.” And, more to the point, they were stronger than we, they said in verse 31. “But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’” The cities are said to be impregnable fortresses; “fortified.” But nothing served their ill purpose more than a description of the giants, on whom they lay a great stress; we saw the giants, men of great size, “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).” They spoke as if they were ready to tremble at the mention of them, as they had done at the sight of them. Oh these tremendous giants!

Here is a most interesting sentence: “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” They might be able to say that they seemed like mere grasshoppers by comparison in their own eyes, but they could not know how they appeared in the eyes of the people of Canaan. As evidence of their complete misjudgment, I offer you Joshua 2:8-11 in which Rahab a prostitute in Jericho tells Joshua’s spies what the people of the land really thought of the Israelites. “Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, ‘I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.’” The Israelites under Moses could have taken the land.

Even if they had judged only by human probabilities they could have reasoned differently. Were not the hosts of Israel very numerous? 600,000 effective men, well motivated and eager, closely working together, and entirely united in interest and affection, themselves constituting a formidable army. Moses, their commander-in-chief, was wise and brave and had led a successful campaign in Ethiopia. If the people had been resolved, and behaved valiantly, what could have stood before them? It is true the Canaanites were strong, but they were dispersed, scattered and eventually were, in fact, defeated one section of the land at a time under Joshua. Being scattered they could not unite against the Israelites as verse 29 says, “The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” By reason of the distances between them they could not soon get together, and by reason of their divided interests they could not long keep together to oppose Israel. The country being plentiful would feed an army, and, though the cities were walled, if they could beat the local nations in the field, the strong-holds would also fall into their hands. As for the giants, their overgrown stature would make them bigger targets; the bulkiest men have not always the best physical coordination or fighting ability.

Though the Israelites deserved to be called cowards this was not the worst; the Scripture brands them as unbelievers. It was not any human probabilities on which they were required to depend. They had God’s presence with them and the engagement of His power for them. The Canaanites were stronger than Israel; suppose they were, but they were not stronger than Israel’s God. We are not able to deal with them, but is not God Almighty able? Don’t we have Him with us? Does not He go before us? And is any thing too hard for Him? If we appear as grasshoppers before the giants, are they not grasshoppers before God? Their cities are walled against us, but can they be walled against heaven? They had had very great experiences of the length and strength of God’s arm, lifted up and made bare on their behalf. Were not the Egyptians as much stronger than they as the Canaanites were? And yet, without a sword drawn by Israel or a stroke struck, the chariots and horsemen of Egypt were quite ruined. The Amalekites had taken them at great disadvantages, and yet Israel defeated them. Years later Psalm 106 24 was written which says, “Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise.” The problem was they did not believe. They doubted. Caleb, Joshua, Moses and Aaron could not convince them otherwise.

Caleb encouraged them to go forward, though he was seconded by Joshua only as verse 30 says, “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’” If Joshua had begun to stem the tide, he would have been suspected of partiality to Moses, whose minister he was; and therefore he prudently left it to Caleb’s management who was of the tribe of Judah, the leading tribe, and therefore the best one to be heard first. Caleb had seen and observed the strength of the inhabitants as much as the other 10. Yet he tries to animate the people to go on and he speaks as one resolved to lead them on with bravery. He does not say, “Let us go up and conquer it;” he looks on that to be as good as done already; but, “Let us go up and possess it; there is nothing to be done but to enter, and take the possession which God our great Lord is ready to give us.”

We are trying to learn what we can about leadership from Moses. In this part of the story, even though Caleb, Joshua, Moses and Aaron try to persuade the Israelites that they can and should go up and take possession of the land, Moses and these helpers could not persuade them. Look at how organized the crowds’ thinking was. Perhaps the 10 doubting spies had met together and planned a strategy. Here are verses 1-4 of chapter 24. “That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?’ And they said to each other, ‘We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.’” They listened to the negative and doubting report of the 10 spies rather than to the word of God, and imagined their condition desperate. Like foolish children, they fall to crying, yet do not know why they cry. It would have been time enough to cry if the enemy had already beaten them badly or if they had seen the sons of Anak at the gate of their camp, but those that cried when nothing hurt them deserved to have something given them to cry for. Unbelief, or distrust of God, has its own built-in punishment. Patience is its own reward and disbelief is its own punishment. Those that do not trust God are continually troubled.

They look back with a causeless discontent. They wish rather to die criminals under God’s justice than live conquerors in His favor. It seems like they were saying, O that we had died in Egypt, or in the wilderness! O that we might die! They wish to die. How base were the spirits of these degenerate Israelites, who, rather than die like soldiers of honor with their swords in their hands, they desire to die like helpless sheep in the wilderness. Next we hear of a really foolish plan that, instead of going forward to Canaan, they would go back again to Egypt. The motion is first made by way of a question in verse 3, “Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” But the energy being high and the spirits of the people being disposed to entertain anything that was perverse, it soon ripened to a resolution, without a debate “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” They surely knew Moses would not be their captain in this retreat. It was the greatest folly in the world to wish themselves in Egypt, or to think that if they were there it would be better with them than it was. If they did not go forward to Canaan, yet better be as they were than go back to Egypt. What did they want? What had they to complain of? They had plenty, peace, rest, were under a good government, had good company, had God’s presence with them, and enough to make them easy even in the wilderness, if they only had hearts to be content. But where were they eager to go to better themselves?

To Egypt! Had they so soon forgotten the sore bondage they were in there? Would they be again under the tyranny of their taskmasters and at the drudgery of making bricks? And, after all the plagues which Egypt had suffered for their sakes, could they expect any better treatment there than they had before, and not rather much worse? In how little time, not a year and a half, have they forgotten all the difficulties of their bondage, and all the songs of their deliverance! God called Moses to shepherd such a group. And the group you shepherd will have at least traces of this and God has called you to be their patient leader. The true friends of Israel here try to save them if possible from ruining themselves, but in vain. The physicians of their state would have healed them, but they would not be healed; their watchmen gave them warning, but they would not take warning and so their blood is upon their own heads.

 Moses and Aaron did their best to quiet the tumult and that was again to fall on their faces before God in prayer. Verse 5 tells us, “Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there.” Though it was against them that they murmured, yet they bravely overlooked the affront and injury done them, and showed themselves to be faithful friends to those who were outrageous enemies to them. Possibly the clamor and noise of the people were so great that Moses and Aaron could not be heard; should they order any of their servants to proclaim silence, the angry multitude would perhaps be the more clamorous; and therefore, to gain audience in the sight of all the assembly, they fell on their faces, in this way expressing their humble prayers to God to still the noise of this raging sea. With great earnestness with the people to stop complaining they hoped to influence them by this humble posture, and to prevail with them not to persist in their rebellion. Moses and Aaron beg them, as though by them God Himself begged them to be reconciled to God. Moses relates forty years later what they said to the people in the repetition of this story recorded in Deuteronomy 1:29, “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.’” Pastors who are zealous friends to precious souls will stoop to anything for their salvation. Moses and Aaron, notwithstanding the posts of honor they were in, prostrate themselves to the people to beg of them not to ruin themselves.

Both Caleb and Joshua did their parts too. They tore their clothes in a holy indignation at the sin of the people and a holy dread of the wrath of God which they saw ready to break out against them. It was the greater trouble to these good men because the tumult was brought on by the very spies with whom they had traveled. Verses 7-9 show their sincerity, “and said to the entire Israelite assembly, ‘The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land.” They made nothing of the difficulties that seemed to lie in the way of their gaining possession of their promise. While we have the presence of God with us, we need not fear the most powerful force against us.

What do Christian leaders today learn from this sad story in which duly appointed and godly leaders were unable to persuade the people to possess something God had promised and they could have had?  Sometimes people will not follow. We should not allow their failure to follow to destroy us. Promises of God require faith to possess. The issues of leadership are very much the same today as they were in Moses’ day. When the going gets rough remember the faithfulness of Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb.