History of Israel: Preseason

In football, the preseason comes before the regular season; to get ready for when the games count. In this episode of Bible Backdrop, we see Israel going through a similar experience. They go through a number of challenges and battles to get ready for their conquering of the Promised Land. There are, of course, a number of rebellious moments and fiery serpents, but they make it through and sit on the edge of the Jordan ready to move ahead. If you are enjoying Bible Backdrop, please leave a 5 star rating and review. You can also get in touch with the show at the e-mail address mentioned in the episode. You can find Bible Backdrop on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you find podcasts.

Transcript

Each step seemed to hang heavy in the air. Climbing a mountain as a young man was hard enough; as a man of 120, it was far more difficult. He stopped often to catch his breath and rest.

Finally he reached the top of the mountain. Moses knew why God had called him here. It was time. He had given the people a final blessing and laid his hands on Joshua to lead the Israelites. His time was done.

Moses sat and looked out to the west. He caught sight of the Jordan river and, beyond that, the city of Jericho. He felt a pang of regret. One hot tempered moment in dealing with the Israelites put him in this place. Instead of leading the people, he was now a mere spectator. He would never get to enjoy the blessings himself. It was now in the hands of this generation.

He sighed. Moses knew that he had sinned and he had to own up to his mistake. Repeated requests to God to cross over were denied. Now, at this final moment, he understood. It wasn’t only because of his sin that he was not leading the Israelites; it was time for a new leader for this new generation. 

Still, it wasn’t easy. He knew Joshua very well. Knew he’d be a great leader for the people. But he felt like a mother watching her children grown up and no longer need her. He’d poured his life into leading the Israelites...forming them into a nation. But it was time.

He looked out to the west again. All of a sudden, in a flash, he could see the entire country. The low rolling hills...the lush, verdent plains...the vineyards dotted across the country. He could even see the shore of the sea and the waves crashing. In this...his last moments...God had blessed him by showing him the Promised Land. All of it, from the north to south; from east to west. It was more beautiful than he ever imagined.

 “Thank you Lord” he said. “Thank you for this final blessing.” And then Moses, the great leader and giver of the law, leaned against a tree and closed his eyes for the final time.

Hello again everyone and welcome to another episode of Bible Backdrop. Today, we’re going to be looking at the battles of Israel before entering the Promised Land. Often, we think that the settlement of the Promised Land begins in Joshua but we see in the book of Numbers a series of battles that set up the main campaign.

Numbers 20 starts out with the Israelites moving from the Wilderness of Zin to Kadesh. There Moses’ sister, Miriam, passes away. As promised, the older generation is dying off and the new generation is going to take the Promised Land. Moses and his family are not immune to this edict and Miriam is the first to go. 

Soon after, the Israelites are complaining again about the lack of water and we briefly touched on this in the last episode. God tells Moses to speak to the rock to produce water. Moses and Aaron disobey and instead strike it with the staff. God still provides for his people, but tells Moses and Aaron that they would not go into the Promised Land. Again, this had to be heart wrenching for Moses who had to deal with the constant griping and rebellion from the Israelites.

While in Kadesh, Moses sends a messenger to the king of Edom asking for passage through his land. God had commanded the Israelites not to disturb the Edomites as they were related as descendants of Esau. They were not to take any of their land as it was given to Esau as his inheritance. Moses offers to pay for any food or drink taken during their travels through the land. 

Now, if you’re a king of this area and you’ve heard the stories, you would probably react the same way Edom’s king did; by telling the Israelites to go pound sand...literally. He wasn’t about to let a large amount of people through his country on a promise not to take it over. So the Israelites need to double back the way they came and go the long way around Edom. This had to be disheartening because they were close to where they would eventually cross the Jordan and now they had to go out of their way.

The nation now comes to Mount Hor which, as with other places, has a disputed location. This must have been outside the land of Edom as the Israelites were told they would not even get a foot-breadth of land in Edom. It is in this place that God tells Moses and Aaron that it is time for Aaron to be “gathered to his people.” Moses, Aaron and Aaron’s son, Eleazar, go up to the mountain and there Moses takes the high priest clothes off of Aaron and puts them on Eleazar, thus officially passing the office and duties of the high priest from Aaron to his son. There Aaron passes away and Moses and Eleazar return to the people and they mourn Aaron for 30 days. As to the location of Mount Hor, the common belief was that it was the mountain known as Jebel Neby Harun. However, archaeological and literary evidence shows that mountain to not be in the right place. The most likely spot is Jebel Maderah which is at the southern point of modern day Israel. This mountain meets the description given to us in the book of Numbers.

Now we come to chapter 21 and here we see the beginning of Israel going against the leaders of Canaan. These early battles could be considered a pre-season...getting the military ready for the main event after crossing the Jordan. The first up is the king of Arad. Tel Arad is believed to be in the southern part of Canaan and this would probably be too far north for the Israelites to be at this time. It is believed that this person was a king over a nomadic people from the same area who gathered his strength to go and meet the Israelites. According to Numbers 21, he fought Israel and took a number of them prisoner. Instead of whining and complaining, the people refocus and decide to go after them. “So Israel made a vow to the LORD and said ‘If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.’ And the LORD listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of that place was called Hormah.” Since this battle was outside the borders of the Promised Land, it was not a war of conquest. This battle served two purposes. First, it gave the Israelites battle experience that they were going to need in the upcoming conquest. Second, it tested Israel’s faithfulness. Would they follow God completely or only go halfway in their destruction of the king and his people? In this case, they were successful in both. As the passage says, they utterly destroyed the cities and the people. They took nothing for themselves but dedicated it all to God. They understood what was needed to win this war and what God was asking them to do. This was to be a destruction of the depraved Canaanite culture.

Before moving too far ahead, we will need to deal with a thorny issue. Here and later in the Bible, God calls for the complete destruction of the Canaanite people living in the land. The Israelites are to not let any of them live. This bothers a lot of people and that is certainly understandable. Since I’m focused more on history, I won’t get into the moral discussions of this command. If you are interested in learning more, I recommend the book: Is God A Moral Monster by Paul Copan. He goes several chapters into this discussion and explains it far better than I ever could. One thing I will note: The Canaanites were a depraved people who had opportunities and examples to repent and did not do so. God is concerned about the Canaanite culture and idolatry spreading to His chosen people. 

Moving on, we see a new old story about the Israelites. After this impressive victory, they are discouraged because of the long route they need to take to get to the entrance to the Promised Land so they start complaining again. Even going so far as to complain about the manna they were being provided. It seems that this new generation wasn’t much better than the old generation. This time, God sends “fiery serpents” to bite the people, causing a painful death. What kind of serpents are these? There are a few possibilities. During his travels to the area, T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, described several snakes that he encountered in the area including horned vipers, puff adders, cobras and black snakes. Another one called the carpet viper, which is a highly poisonous snake, is a possibility. Also, what caused them to be fiery? Were they a reddish color or did their bite and venom burn the victim like they were on fire? 

The chapter continues and says that many died as a result of the serpents. This may have been the last of the older generation who would not enter the Promised Land due to their unbelief. It may also be a message to the younger generation that unbelief would lead them to destruction. Their response was repentance and begging for forgiveness. In this case, God doesn’t immediately remove the serpents. Instead, he tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole so that whoever looked at it would live. This is an interesting test of faith. The people need only look at the serpent and there may have been some that refused either out of pride or disbelief. This is hard to believe, but it is very possible. It has some parallels in our own life where we often have troubles and, instead of prayer, we find ourselves looking at our circumstances. Later, Jesus references the bronze serpent in John chapter 3 in his conversation with Nicodemus. 

After this incident, Israel starts back to their launching spot for the conquest. The names and places listed in the chapter show them constantly moving north to their gathering spot. Now comes the next battle. Like with the Edomites, they send messengers ahead to Sihon, king of the Amorites, asking to pass through his land and they would pay for anything they took. Unfotunately like with Edom, the king refused the request. In this case he took it a step further. While the Edomites drew up their army, they didn’t attack Israel. Sihon, though, gathered up his army and actually did attack. Unlike the Edomites, who were under God’s protection, the Amorites were fair game. So the two armies fought at a place called Jahaz and the Amorites were defeated. The victory was so complete, that the Israelites took all the cities of the Amorites. Then Moses spied out another Amorite territory called Jazer and drove them out of there too. So for the first time in 40 years, the Israelites had cities to live in instead of dwelling in tents. 

Next up for the Israelites is Og, king of Bashan. This kingdom was in an area east of the Sea of Galilee in northeast Israel. God specifically tells the Israelites not to be afraid and that He will deliver Og into their hands. This may have been necessary as Deuteronomy says that Og was a remnant of the giants so he must have looked very fearsome. Israel does win the battle and add his lands as their possession.

Now we come to a very interesting section of the book of Numbers. Balak, king of Moab, is deathly afraid of Israel as they’ve grown so numerous. However, instead of meeting them in battle, he decides to call on a false prophet, Balaam, to curse them. The story takes place in chapters 22-24 and I’m not going to go into great detail, but the bottom line is that God ends up forcing Balaam to speak blessings instead of curses. The wild thing is that this was not necessary for Balak as God had already told the Israelites that they would not be attacking or taking any land from Moab. In chapter 25, Balaam finds another way to make Israel fall. Teaming up with the Midianites, they make Israel fall into apostasy by worshiping Baal by offering sacrifices and then participating in ritual prostitution. God, as you can imagine, is displeased and commands Moses to gather the leaders and have the hang the offenders. The apostasy is so bad that an Israelite by the name of Zimri brings in a Midianite woman named Cozbi and they start their “worship session” while all of Israel is at the tabernacle repenting of their sin. Phineas, the son of Eleazar the high priest, sees this and grabs a javelin. From the description given, it seems that he killed them while they were in the act as he thrust the javelin in the mans back and it went through the woman. Because of his zeal, God relents from the plague but not before 24,000 people have died.

So now, since God has told them not to attack the Moabites, he sends the Israelites to destroy the Midianites. I wonder if this was a hard time for Moses as he lived with a priest of Midian and married a Midianite. It seems, though, that he wasn’t very troubled by the order. This may have been another branch of Midianites that were different from Jethro and Zipporah. The Israelites attack and defeat the Midianites but Moses is angry as they’ve allowed many of the women to live. These were the women who had led Israel into worshiping Baal and they were not allowed to live. Included in the list of those killed are the 5 kings of Midian along with Balaam the false prophet. After winning the battle and the time for ritual purification is done, a count of the people who went into battle is completed and it’s found that there were no casualties. As a result, the tribal leaders bring an offering of gold from the captured booty that ended up being equal to 16,750 shekels. This would have been almost 40% over what was required for the annual giving for the upkeep of the tabernacle and, later, the temple if you count one shekel per person that fought in the battle.

Now in Numbers 32, we come to the first permanent settlements. The tribes of Reuben and Gad looked at the land they had just conquered and saw that it was good for livestock and they appear to be the tribes with the most. They ask Moses if they can settle in this land and not cross the Jordan. Moses pushes back and basically says it’s not fair that there brother Israelites should have to fight for their inheritance while they sit back and enjoy the land. So they come to an agreement: Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh will settle in the land with their women and children and build fortified cities to protect them and the majority of the fighting men would cross over with the rest of the Israelites to fight for their inheritance. Moses agrees and warns them to follow through or they would be guilty of a terrible sin.

After this, Numbers 33 goes into the borders of the land and how it would be divided. The borders are difficult to describe in a podcast format and we’ll talk about some of this when we get to Joshua and Judges.

As the book of Numbers closes, we come to the book of Deuteronomy. This is a final speech and sermon to the people of Israel from Moses, reminding them of their history and what they were about to set out to do. Deuteronomy is often an overlooked book in churches today, but it is often quoted in the New Testament. Jesus quotes from it each time as he is tempted by Satan in the wilderness. For the purposes of this podcast, it goes over much of what we have already covered except for the last two chapters. Moses blesses the tribes of Israel and then places his hands on Joshua, formally proclaiming him the new leader of Israel. He then climbed Mount Nebo and God, as a final blessing, showed him all the Promised Land. While this had to be a heart wrenching experience, he must have still been thrilled to see what was coming for the people he led for 40 years. It is here that Moses’ chapter closes as he dies and is buried. The Bible notes that his grave is in an unknown place which is probably good since the Israelites would be prone to make it a place of worship.

So the stage is now set. The Israelites are on the cusp of doing what they refused to do 40 years prior. The city of Jericho stands like a beacon as we await the next chapter. And it is here that we will end this episode. In the next episode, we start in the book of Joshua as Israel sets out to gain their inheritance and, as usual, there are many bumps along the way. 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!