Numbers 13

THE TWELVE SPIES.

This chapter contains the names of the twelve princes selected from their tribes to visit Canaan and report the quality of the land and the number and military resources of its inhabitants, (1-20,) their adventures during forty days, (21-25,) and their conflicting reports, (26-33.) Here the Israelites were doomed to a prolonged probation: they were turned back for nearly forty years into the wilderness they had left.

CONCLUDING NOTES.

(1.) If, as we have suggested, the proposal to send spies originated with the people as the first result of their distrust of Jehovah, why did he so readily accede to this proposition? The answer is not difficult. We see in the history of Israel the progress and completion of that hardening process which showed the unfitness of that generation for the conquest of Canaan. It was better that their latent unbelief and rebellion should come to the surface in the wilderness than in the presence of their enemies on the field of battle. God does not so interfere with the process of the inward development of the character of individuals or nations as to prevent their working out their natural inclinations if they resolve to reject his grace. He sets before them his promises and his warnings. Then he bids them go forward with good courage. Here is the test of true faith and loyalty to him. The result must be either the gradual unfolding of faith or the hardening of unbelief into practical disobedience. So “we see” and the lesson is to all time and to all men “that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Hebrews 3:19. Again, this answer to a prayer prompted by a distrust of God’s guidance “teaches a large truth as to God’s dealings; namely, that he often lovingly lets us have our own way to show us by the issues that his is better, and that the daring which is obedience is the true prudence.”

(2.) “Inquiry” may mark the beginning of faith; it may also issue in the completing of unbelief, just as “the gloaming” may usher in the dawn of morning or precede the darkness of night. It depends on our position relatively to the sun. It is too much the fashion to speak of the honesty and sacredness of doubt. They who have really felt it know best its load and its misery. And there is a doubt which is neither honest nor sacred. It is that of those who have, or ought to have, experienced the truth a doubt which springs from moral rather than intellectual causes.

(3.) What purpose could this record of Israel’s sin have served if it had not been true? Why should later writers have invented it? It is a matter of fact that later Jewish writers, boasting of the merits of their ancestors, are tempted to extenuate and soften their sins recorded in the Scriptures. This record of sins constitutes a dark background against which is set the faithfulness and mercy of Israel’s covenant God.