King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 12 notes
1And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
Yeah, I understand their weeping; now they were stuck in the wilderness.
2And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
3And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
Wait right there, something doesn't add up.
Was not the sword upon them when Pharaoh came against them whilst hedged in by the sea 🌊?
Yes, the Lord delivered them mightily.
They had so soon forgotten. The problem with Israel 🇮🇱 was remembrance and faithlessness.
Was it something in the culture, or the slave mentality?
They had been so used to oppression that they thought 💭 they wanted freedom but were not ready for it.
Something was wrong, and this affected the entire nation, save a handful of people.
Is it not interesting that they who saw the miracles were unbelieving, yet their children 🧒, who never saw, or those who did but were young, rather could trust God enough to enter the promised land?
4And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
What was wrong with them? Something was wrong with them, mightily wrong with them.
No wonder God knew that even if they entered the promised land, they would not take it nor conquer what was rightfully theirs.
Moses had already won the appeal not to destroy them all and start afresh with him.
So God did the same thing in a substituted way.
He made them stay outside the promised land and cut short their life span.
Same thing: if he had killed them as earlier planned and Moses hadn't interrupted, then God would have had to wait till Moses and that generation grew and matured enough to be a matching army to conquer Canaan.
God executed the same plan, but in a more merciful fashion.
Just like he swapped the first born of Israel 🇮🇱 for the Levites and lambs.
It's all about substitution. Substitution is an act of mercy and an acceptable form of appeasement of God.
5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
6And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
7And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.
These Israelites were messing up this long-awaited dream of Joshua and Caleb.
Here they were, with an opportunity of a lifetime to make a name for themselves and their children,
etching their names forever in the sands of time,
inheriting whole lands and territories — and these people just couldn't see it and were hindering Joshua and Caleb.
Because Joshua and Caleb were subject to a system. A system set up by God; the delay of the system was the delay of all, including Caleb and Joshua.
The system was delayed by a further 38 years, and thus Joshua and Caleb were also delayed by 38 years.
Imagine that — that because of human flaws and sluggishness others are delayed terribly.
But God is faithful, who cannot be mocked; he catches the wicked in their schemes.
He helped these young Hebrew men (in their forties actually) and kept them young in strength 💪.
So though it seemed they were delayed, their strength 💪 remained intact for war, both for going out and coming in.
Joshua 14:11 KJV
As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.
So it doesn't matter the system you are subject to.
God is faithful, who also will do it and fulfil his promise.
1 Thessalonians 5:24 KJV
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
8If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
9Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
10But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
How did it appear? I thought it was always there. Or did it suddenly glow brighter, or it came ever so often that it almost seemed it was permanently stationed there?
Either way, it appeared out of nowhere.
11And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?
12I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.
This is the second time God had made this statement...
The first being when they made the golden calf, after the Lord had given them the ten commandments himself by speaking audibly from the mountain ⛰.
For God to have made this statement at this point shows how hurt he was by them.
How could they turn back at this crucial stage?
Of all times to be complaining and faithless,
this was not the time, not when they were this close.
They really hurt God.
And now his mind was made up; he was going to disinherit them.
What was God supposed to do? He had invested time, energy and resources, his power, to bring them out and lead them this far, but now they spoke of going back into slavery rather than fight for the freedom given them.
God knew that with this mindset, even if he forced them into the land, they would reject him and go a-whoring after the gods of the land. They were not going to stick with the Lord.
The whole nation was sick. God knew he couldn't make a nation and army he could call his own from these people. Don't forget they had made a golden calf not too long ago, when Moses delayed just a little in coming down from the mountain.
It is amazing God even used Aaron as high priest, a man who built the people a golden calf and couldn't stand his ground.
But he had proved to be useful. We just have to use and work with people despite their flaws.
13And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, ( for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;)
14And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.
15Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,
16Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness.
The situation was terrible 😰, but it had to be managed.
Moses reminded God of what the other nations had heard of:
how the Lord was visibly in the midst of his people by day and by night 🌃.
If he killed them as he wanted to, the people would not blame the Israelites but would say he, God, was incapable. A very painful untruth.
But who was God going to explain it to?
Who would believe it — that it was the people who were incapable and not their God?
In that light, though painful, God had to endure the people again.
He had to feed this faithless people with the bread 🥪 of angels.
They were not worthy, but to save face he had to.
Oh my, the things that are happening in the corridors of power and in leadership just to save face.
Only God knows. This feels like living with an unfaithful spouse, who continues to scorn you by lewdness and fornication, yet to keep the marriage and the children etc. you stay.
It was like rape — Israel enjoying pleasure and the blessings and the cloud 🌥 cover and the glory of the Lord, and in that pleasure they inflict pain,
terrible pain on the Lord.
Oh, our God is indeed very humble — how he could destroy these folks and start afresh, yet he chose to keep the system working ⚒ and live and relate with man as a father and son is unfathomable.
17And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,
18The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
19Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
20And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word:
21But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.
22Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;
Eiiii, God was taking count and disinherited the people.
According to Moses' own words, if he killed them all at once, as one man (vs 15), he would be doubted, so he killed them over a 30-year span.
23Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:
24But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.
So this is how we possess the land: fully following the Lord.
25( Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.
Kai, back to the Red Sea 🌊 🤯. The journey was over. The quest was done.
God was done with them. He had decided and would not relent: they will not inherit Canaan.
Yes, though he would not kill them immediately, as he thought to, because his mercy is great, yet they would not inherit the land.
Both mercy and judgement were meted to Israel 🇮🇱 at this point.
26And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
27How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.
28Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:
29Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,
30Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
31But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.
32But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
33And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
34After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.
🙁 Hm... Ye shall know my breach of promise. God is not a machine or a senseless idol.
He is real. He does not get up and swear 🤬 senselessly, without conditions.
He reveals another aspect of him.
The God who breaches his promise. Though it really took a lot of provoking for him to get to that point.
35I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.
36And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land,
37Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.
38But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still.
39And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.
40And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.
41And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.
42Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies.
43For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.
44But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.
45Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.