The Living Bible (48 page)

Numbers
12

One day Miriam and Aaron were criticizing Moses because his wife was a Cushite woman,
*
²
 and they said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?”

    
But the Lord heard them.
^3-4
 Immediately he summoned Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to the Tabernacle: “Come here, you three,” he commanded. So they stood before the Lord. (Now Moses was the humblest man on earth.)

    
⁵
 Then the Lord descended in the Cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam, step forward,” he commanded; and they did.
⁶
 And the Lord said to them, “Even with a prophet, I would communicate by visions and dreams;
^7-8
 but that is not how I communicate with my servant Moses. He is completely at home in my house! With him I speak face-to-face! And he shall see the very form of God! Why then were you not afraid to criticize him?”

    
⁹
 Then the anger of the Lord grew hot against them, and he departed.
¹⁰
 As the Cloud moved from above the Tabernacle, Miriam suddenly became white with leprosy. When Aaron saw what had happened,
¹¹
 he cried out to Moses, “Oh, sir, do not punish us for this sin; we were fools to do such a thing.
¹²
 Don’t let her be as one dead, whose body is half rotted away at birth.”

    
¹³
 And Moses cried out to the Lord, “Heal her, O God, I beg you!”

    
¹⁴
 And the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face she would be defiled seven days. Let her be banished from the camp for seven days, and after that she can come back again.”

    
¹⁵
 So Miriam was excluded from the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back in before they traveled again.
¹⁶
 Afterwards they left Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Numbers
13

Jehovah now instructed Moses,
²
 “Send spies into the land of Canaan—the land I am giving to Israel; send one leader from each tribe.”

    
^3-15
 (The Israelis were camped in the wilderness of Paran at the time.) Moses did as the Lord had commanded and sent these twelve tribal leaders:

    
Shammua, son of Zaccur, from the tribe of Reuben;

    
Shaphat, son of Hori, from the tribe of Simeon;

    
Caleb, son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah;

    
Igal, son of Joseph, from the tribe of Issachar;

    
Hoshea,
*
son of Nun, from the half-tribe of Ephraim;

    
Palti, son of Raphu, from the tribe of Benjamin;

    
Gaddiel, son of Sodi, from the tribe of Zebulun;

    
Gaddi, son of Susi, from the tribe of Joseph (actually, the half-tribe of Manasseh);

    
Ammiel, son of Gemalli, from the tribe of Dan;

    
Sethur, son of Michael, from the tribe of Asher;

    
Nahbi, son of Vophsi, from the tribe of Naphtali;

    
Geuel, son of Machi, from the tribe of Gad.

    
¹⁶
 It was at this time that Moses changed Hoshea’s name to Joshua.
*

    
¹⁷
 Moses sent them out with these instructions: “Go northward into the hill country of the Negeb,
¹⁸
 and see what the land is like; see also what the people are like who live there, whether they are strong or weak, many or few;
¹⁹
 and whether the land is fertile or not; and what cities there are, and whether they are villages or are fortified;
²⁰
 whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are many trees. Don’t be afraid, and bring back some samples of the crops you see.” (The first of the grapes were being harvested at that time.)

    
²¹
 So they spied out the land all the way from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob near Hamath.
²²
 Going northward, they passed first through the Negeb and arrived at Hebron. There they saw the Ahimanites, Sheshites, and Talmites, all families descended from Anak. (By the way, Hebron was very ancient, having been founded seven years before Tanis
*
in Egypt.)
²³
 Then they came to what is now known as the valley of Eshcol where they cut down a single cluster of grapes so large that it took two of them to carry it on a pole between them! They also took some samples of the pomegranates and figs.
²⁴
 The Israelis named the valley “Eshcol” at that time (meaning “Cluster”) because of the cluster of grapes they found!

    
²⁵
 After forty days of exploration they returned from their tour.
²⁶
 They made their report to Moses, Aaron, and all the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh, and they showed the fruit they had brought with them.

    
²⁷
 This was their report: “We arrived in the land you sent us to see, and it is indeed a magnificent country—a land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’ Here is some fruit we have brought as proof.
²⁸
 But the people living there are powerful, and their cities are fortified and very large; and what’s more, we saw Anakim giants there!
²⁹
 The Amalekites live in the south, while in the hill country there are the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites; down along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and in the Jordan River Valley are the Canaanites.”

    
³⁰
 But Caleb reassured the people as they stood before Moses. “Let us go up at once and possess it,” he said, “for we are well able to conquer it!”

    
³¹
 “Not against people as strong as they are!” the other spies said. “They would crush us!”

    
³²
 So the majority report of the spies was negative: “The land is full of warriors, the people are powerfully built,
³³
 and we saw some of the Anakim there, descendants of the ancient race of giants. We felt like grasshoppers before them, they were so tall!”

Numbers
14

Then all the people began weeping aloud, and they carried on all night.
²
 Their voices rose in a great chorus of complaint against Moses and Aaron.

    
“We wish we had died in Egypt,” they wailed, “or even here in the wilderness,
³
 rather than be taken into this country ahead of us. Jehovah will kill us there, and our wives and little ones will become slaves. Let’s get out of here and return to Egypt!”
⁴
 The idea swept the camp. “Let’s elect a leader to take us back to Egypt!” they shouted.

    
⁵
 Then Moses and Aaron fell face downward on the ground before the people of Israel.
⁶
 Two of the spies, Joshua (the son of Nun), and Caleb (the son of Jephunneh), ripped their clothing
⁷
 and said to all the people, “It is a wonderful country ahead,
⁸
 and the Lord loves us. He will bring us safely into the land and give it to us. It is
very
fertile, a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’!
⁹
 Oh, do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land. For they are but bread for us to eat! The Lord is with us and he has removed his protection from them! Don’t be afraid of them!”

    
^10-11
 But the only response of the people was to talk of stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared, and the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people despise me? Will they
never
believe me, even after all the miracles I have done among them?
¹²
 I will disinherit them and destroy them with a plague, and I will make you into a nation far greater and mightier than they are!”

    
¹³
 “But what will the Egyptians think when they hear about it?” Moses pleaded with the Lord. “They know full well the power you displayed in rescuing your people.
¹⁴
 They have told this to the inhabitants of this land, who are well aware that you are with Israel and that you talk with her face-to-face. They see the pillar of cloud and fire standing above us, and they know that you lead and protect us day and night.
¹⁵
 Now if you kill all your people, the nations that have heard your fame will say,
¹⁶
 ‘The Lord had to kill them because he wasn’t able to take care of them in the wilderness. He wasn’t strong enough to bring them into the land he swore he would give them.’

    
^17-18
 “Oh, please, show the great power of your patience
*
by forgiving our sins and showing us your steadfast love. Forgive us, even though you have said that you don’t let sin go unpunished, and that you punish the father’s fault in the children to the third and fourth generation.
¹⁹
 Oh, I plead with you, pardon the sins of this people because of your magnificent, steadfast love, just as you have forgiven them all the time from when we left Egypt until now.”

    
^20-21
 Then the Lord said, “All right, I will pardon them as you have requested. But I vow by my own name that just as it is true that all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,
²²
 so it is true that not one of the men who has seen my glory and the miracles I did both in Egypt and in the wilderness—and ten times refused to trust me and obey me—
²³
 shall even see the land I promised to this people’s ancestors.
²⁴
 But my servant Caleb is a different kind of man—he has obeyed me fully. I will bring him into the land he entered as a spy, and his descendants shall have their full share in it.
²⁵
 But now, since the people of Israel are so afraid of the Amalekites and the Canaanites living in the valleys, tomorrow you must turn back into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.”

    
^26-27
 Then the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, “How long will this wicked nation complain about me? For I have heard all that they have been saying.
²⁸
 Tell them, ‘The Lord vows to do to you what you feared:
²⁹
 You will all die here in this wilderness! Not a single one of you twenty years old and older, who has complained against me,
³⁰
 shall enter the Promised Land. Only Caleb (son of Jephunneh) and Joshua (son of Nun) are permitted to enter it.

    
³¹
 “‘You said your children would become slaves of the people of the land. Well, instead I will bring
them
safely into the land and they shall inherit what you have despised.
³²
 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
³³
 You must wander in the desert like nomads for forty years. In this way you will pay for your faithlessness, until the last of you lies dead in the desert.

    
^34-35
 “‘Since the spies were in the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, bearing the burden of your sins. I will teach you what it means to reject me. I, Jehovah, have spoken. Every one of you who has conspired against me shall die here in this wilderness.’”

    
^36-38
 Then the ten spies who had incited the rebellion against Jehovah by striking fear into the hearts of the people were struck dead before the Lord. Of all the spies, only Joshua and Caleb remained alive.
³⁹
 What sorrow there was throughout the camp when Moses reported God’s words to the people!

    
⁴⁰
 They were up early the next morning and started toward the Promised Land.

    
“Here we are!” they said. “We realize that we have sinned, but now we are ready to go on into the land the Lord has promised us.”

    
⁴¹
 But Moses said, “It’s too late. Now you are disobeying the Lord’s orders to return to the wilderness.
⁴²
 Don’t go ahead with your plan or you will be crushed by your enemies, for the Lord is not with you.
⁴³
 Don’t you remember? The Amalekites and the Canaanites are there! You have deserted the Lord, and now he will desert you.”

    
⁴⁴
 But they went ahead into the hill country, despite the fact that neither the Ark nor Moses left the camp.
⁴⁵
 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in the hills came down and attacked them and chased them to Hormah.