History of Israel: Rebellion

The nation of Israel leaves Mount Sinai to gain their inheritance in the Promised Land. As usual, things don't go according to plan. The people get angry, God rebukes, Moses intercedes and the process starts all over again. Until it comes time to actually take the Promised Land and then things go really sideways. Listen to this episode of Bible Backdrop as we tell some of the stories from the book of Numbers about the constant rebellion of the people of Israel.

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Transcript

It had been a long time since he’d seen his family. The Israelite spy had been going through the land, gathering information to bring back to the people. He couldn’t believe what he’d seen. Everything grew...and grew big. 

He stood on the outskirts of a vineyard and waited to make sure nobody was around. He looked over at his companion and nodded. They both walked between the vines and came to a cluster of grapes unlike any they had ever seen before. It was absolutely massive. Pulling a knife he cut the vine and grape cluster but it was just too big. His companion found a large branch and they tied the grape cluster to it so they could both carry it between the two of them.

They went back the way they came to head back to the Israelite camp. Suddenly, the spy stopped and waited. He had heard something. A huge thud...and then another...coming closer. They looked at each other and scrambled behind a rock outcropping.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge giant of a man came into view. He was walking down the road, facing straight ahead and not paying attention to anything else. He had to be at least 6 cubits tall and carried a club the size of a small tree. He didn’t have to worry about robbers or bandits. Nobody was going to try and rob him.

The Israelites looked at each other in astonishment. Is this who they were going to have to fight to take this land? It was impossible! They had to get back and warn the others. Moses was leading them into a trap. After the giant moved on down the road, the spies made sure he was gone before moving out again. Yes, they still had the grapes. They had to bring something back to show everyone. But the people had to be warned about the threat they faced. This campaign was not going to go well.

Hello again everyone and welcome back to Bible Backdrop. We’re continuing our History of Israel series and finishing up the time in the wilderness before the conquest of the Promised Land. There’s a few stories to tell that highlight what happened to the nation of Israel during this time. Most of the remainder of Exodus and Leviticus include the giving of the commandments, the establishment of the law, and the sacrificial system. We went over many of the sacrifices in earlier episodes and won’t need to go over them here.

Many of the stories we find during this time are in the book of Numbers. In Numbers 10, the nation leaves Mount Sinai after 2 years. What was happening during the two years isn’t described here but it’s probable that the organization of the nation was becoming more formalized. Each tribe would have their organization and God gave commandments about how the tribes would travel. Instead of going through the wilderness all jumbled up, they would be organized by tribes with Judah in the front and Dan acting as rearguard. This was a lesson from their fight with the Amalekites. Perhaps also during this time, they were learning to live under the laws given to them at Sinai along with the sacrificial system. Finally, there may have been formal military training to prepare for the conquest of the Promised Land. With all this, they were ready to finally take possession of the Promised Land.

Or...that’s what should have happened. As we’ve seen in the past, Israel has a very, very short memory. Soon after moving out, Numbers 11 talks about the people murmuring. What this murmuring was about is unknown, but God hears it and “His anger was aroused.” Not a good thing. God sends fire that burns among them and on the outskirts of the camp. The people cry out to Moses who prays for the people and the fire dies down.

After this little incident, the people start complaining again. And this time, they’re not murmuring. They want meat and are tired of the manna. After all this, Moses cries out to God and releases his deepest frustrations. To help Moses carry the burden, God commands him to call together 70 elders to show themselves at the Tent of Meeting. 68 show up and God’s spirit falls upon them and they begin to prophecy. 2 others who didn’t come with the rest, Eldad and Medad, started prophecying while still in the camp. Joshua sees this as a threat against Moses and asks him to stop them. However, Moses realizes what God is doing and wishes that the whole nation would be able to prophecy. Moses was not concerned about titles and power; his heart aligned with God’s and he understood the vision for the nation.

One thing to notice about this story. God requires 70 elders plus Moses to come together to form a council. Now where have we seen this before? Check out episode 16 for the answer.

After this, God promises to send the people meat but there would be a price to pay. He would bless them so much that they would begin to hate it. That night, God sends a wind and the camp is surrounded by quail. The Bible says they were 2 cubits deep and could be found as far as a day in any direction. 2 cubits equals about 3 feet, so imagine being waist high in quail and it’s all around you. The people gathered and had plenty. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story. As they’re eating the meat, before it was even consumed, God struck some of the people with a plague and they died there. It may have been a disease that was actually in some of the quail that caused them to die. Whatever it was, God used it to remind the people of the need for obedience and humility.

As if this wasn’t enough, Moses then has to contend with rebellion from his own household. Aaron and Miriam, his brother and sister, start complaning about Moses’ wife who is a Cushite or, more commonly, an Ethiopian. We don’t know if this is his wife Zipporah or if she had passed away and he married another woman. She must have looked very different from them and was not an Israelite. However, this appears to be a smokescreen for the real problem. They accuse Moses of being prideful and making all the decisions for the nation alone. They want a piece of the action and the recognition that comes with it. In this case, it is they who are being prideful and God deals with them immediately. He calls all of them to the tent of meeting and speaks audibly to them, reminding them that while God normally speaks in visions to prophets, He speaks with Moses “face to face.” This is a euphemism for a close relationship. After being in God’s presence, Miriam is afflicted with leprosy; most likely because she appears to be the ringleader of the trouble. Aaron asks for mercy from Moses and Moses prays to God to heal her. God commands that she should be sent out of the camp for 7 days and then she can rejoin the fellowship. That had to be a long 7 days for Miriam, who had a lot of time to think about what she did.

Once the 7 days were completed, the nation then left and went to the Desert of Paran. This would be the staging ground for the campaign to take the Promised Land. Paran is said to be an area that includes the eastern part of the Sinai peninsula and the southern part of the Negev desert. Basically, to the south of present day Israel. Before start the campaign, Moses sends out 12 spies, one from each tribe, with instructions to spy out the land and report back. Mainly he wants to know what the land is like, what the people are like, and how fortified are the cities. After 40 days, the spies return with a great report about the land. It is indeed a land flowing with milk and honey. They even bring back some of the fruit that grows in the land as proof. The bunch of grapes are so large that it has to be carried by two people. Unfortunately, that’s where the good report ends. They also report that the cities are heavily fortified and that the descendants of Anak live there along with the Amalekites and other Canaanite tribes. We’re not sure who Anak was but his descendants were apparently a race of giants. It’s thought that Goliath was a descendant of these people. 

One of the spies, Caleb, tries to push back against the bad report by saying that God would be with them to defeat their enemies. They had already seen miracle after miracle. Why would this be any different? Joshua joins him in this debate but the people refuse to listen. Instead of belief, they give in to despair and self-pity. They even spend the night weeping over the possibility that they could all die in trying to take this land. The next day, they demand to vote in a new leader who will take them back to Egypt. This was the ultimate in rebellion against God and his chosen leader. As a result, Moses and Aaron fall on their faces not as a plea to the people for their lives, but as a plea and prayer to God knowing the people were being blasphemous. Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes, a sign of extreme mourning, and tried to convince the people one more time. The only thing the people were convinced of were that Joshua and Caleb needed to be stoned to death for their report. 

And then…God steps in. The Bible says “the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before the children of Israel.” This had to be a heart stopping moment for the Israelites. It was likely in that instant that they then remembered all the things God had done for them but it was too late. For a second time, God offers to wipe out this nation and start anew with Moses. All Moses has to do is...nothing. Again, though, Moses intercedes for the people and is concerned with God’s reputation among the nations. As before, God relents in destroying the people but determines that this generation would not inherit the Promised Land. Over the next 40 years, anyone 20 years old and older would die in the wilderness without experiencing God’s promise. The only exceptions would be Caleb and Joshua. The other 10 spies immediately died by the plague. Moses passed along God’s decree and they started mourning. The next day, some of the people repented and wanted to start the campaign but they were quickly routed.

I wish I could say that this was the end of the grumbling and rebellion, but it wasn’t. Later, we see 3 more people come up and challenge Moses and Aaron. These were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Korah was from the tribe of Levi while Dathan and Abiram were from Reuben. They accused Moses of being prideful and taking all the leadership responsibility while Aaron was taking over the priesthood. They gathered 250 people together in a show of force against Moses and Aaron. Moses prays and then tells Korah and his followers to show up with censers and incense to burn before the Lord to see who the Lord chooses. Spoiler alert: it’s not Korah. At the appointed time, the 250 show up along with Aaron and Moses. Then God warns them to move away because He is going to bring judgement on the whole assembly, but Moses and Aaron intercede. So the judgment focuses on Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and it’s not pretty. Moses tells everyone to get away from the tents of the three men and for good reason. Once Moses is done speaking, the earth opens and swallows the men, their families, and all their possessions. God has basically extinguished not only the men but their legacy and their names from the nation. There would be no inheritance for them at all. Oh...and as for the 250 who were with the rebels; God destroyed them with fire and ordered Eleazar, Aaron’s son, to take their censers and hammer them out to overlay the altar because they had been offered before the Lord and were holy. They would also be a constant reminder to the people about the cost of rebellion.

Again, you would think the people would repent. Nope. The very next day the congregation accuse Moses and Aaron of murdering their fellow Israelites. God tells Moses to get away from the assembly because he’s going to destroy them. Instead of letting disaster fall, Moses tells Aaron to intercede for the Israelites as the plague had already started. Aaron does so and the plague is stopped but not before 14,700 people died. 

God decides to end this talk of rebellion once and for all. He tells Moses to gather the staff of each tribal leader and write their name on it. For Levi, Moses takes Aaron’s staff and writes Aaron’s name on it. This was important because the staff was a symbol of a person’s authority. God told Moses to put the staffs in front of the ark and the one that God chooses would sprout. This was an absolute outward sign of God’s selection. The people and Moses did as directed. The next morning, Aaron’s staff had not only sprouted but budded, blossomed and produced almonds. This was indeed a miracle and was an obvious sign that Aaron was chosen by God to be in the role as high priest.

Now there is one final story before we end this episode. Unfortunately, it shows that even the best leaders chosen by God still sin and have dire consequences. As usual, the story starts with the people’s rebellion and speaking out against Moses due to the lack of water. We’ve seen this before. So God tells Moses to go to a rock and speak to it and it would produce water. Moses, however, has had enough and in his anger decides to strike it with his staff...the same as he did many years before. God, in his mercy, provides water for the people but punishes Moses and Aaron for their disobedience. And the cost is very high. Neither of them would enter the Promised Land and would die in the wilderness along with the rest of the generation that rebelled. This had to be heart wrenching to Moses who had done so much for the people only to trip and fall at the finish line. 

On that note, I think we will end it here for now. In the next episode, the battles begin and are a pre-cursor to the campaign for the Promised Land. If you are enjoying Bible Backdrop, please subscribe and leave a 5 star rating and review. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can e-mail me at BibleBackdrop@gmail.com. Word of mouth is still the best way for this show to get around, so tell a friend and have them subscribe. You can find Bible Backdrop on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found. Thank you again for listening and have a great week!