Numbers Part 4

 

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Why It Took Forty Years

I know I've wondered out loud here more than once about just why in the world it took the Moses and the Israelites forty years to make their way to the Land Of Milk And Honey, aka Canaan. Well, the next few chapters spell it out for us, kinda, so let's get to it.

    Apparently their camp in the wilderness of Paran is pretty close to the Milk and Honey border, so in Chapter 13 Moses summons a hardy member from each of the Twelve Tribes (no Levites, right?) and tells them he wants a scouting report before the entire group makes the big push into the land God has promised. He wants to know all about the valleys, the hills, the fields, the people, what the towns are like, you know, the lay of the land. He also wants some fruit samples brought back. Just to make the assignment seem exciting and sexy he tells them they are spies and that the fruit should be "stolen."

    In case you want to know their names, here is the Israelites answer to the Dirty Dozen. It's not going to be on a quiz or anything, but if you want to memorize them I guarantee you'll blow away everyone at a party where some guy thinks he can impress the gathering by reciting the names of the Seven Dwarfs** or the Fifteen Counties of Arizona***.

1. Team Reuben: Shammua
2. Team Simeon: Shapnat
3. Team Judah: Caleb
4. Team Issachar: Igal
5. Team Ephraim: Hoshea (Moses changes his name to Joshua. Just because)
6. Team Benjamin: Palti
7. Team Zebulun: Gaddiel
8. Team Joseph: Gaddi
9. Team Dan: Ammiel
10. Team Asher: Sethur
11. Team Naphtali: Nahbi
12. Team Gad: Geuel

    The boys cross the border when nobody's looking and spread out to gather the needed intel. A couple of them come across a vineyard where they snip a bunch of grapes off a vine. It must have been a hella big bunch of grapes, because they have to tie it to a pole and carry it between the two of them on their shoulders. Land of Milk, Honey and Mega Fruit indeed.

    Forty days later they return to camp with their report. The land is indeed one of plenty, but the people who live there are big and scary and all but two of the spies are of the opinion that it is too dangerous to try to boot the existing tenants out. They are all for turning around and heading back to Egypt. The only two who think they should go ahead with the plan are Caleb and Joshua (formerly Hoshea), who lobby unsuccessfully for forging ahead.

    The larger congregation gets wind of the report of big and scary people in Canaan and in Chapter 14 they decide the Go Back To Egypt Plan sounds good to them. This upsets Moses and Aaron so much that they fall on their faces in front of everyone. Really, that's what it says in verse 5. Caleb and Joshua try to help Moses by telling the rest of the Israelites that with God on their side it'll all be okay, that Yes They Can boot all the nasty, scary people out of Canaan, but the people tell them to shut their pie holes or they'll take them out and stone them to death. Really, that's what it says in verse 10.

    God gets wind of what's going on and so he comes down and says he's done with all this disobedience and appalling lack of faith and by golly he's going to kill everyone and just start over. By now I think we can call this God's version of "Do you want me to stop this car? Because if it doesn't settle down back there I'm stopping the car. I mean it." Once again, Moses talks him down, telling him that wiping out the people God led out of Egypt wouldn't be good for his reputation. I mean, be real, what would the Egyptians think? He would be a laughing stock is what would happen. So God relents, kind of, by saying that he won't kill everybody, but he'll be good and gosh darned if the adults of the troupe are ever going to live to see the Land of Milk and Honey. And this is where I'm starting to get some clarity about why it's going to take forty years. God's going to make them wander around the edges of Canaan until the original cast members all croak, and then their descendents can take the land.

    But in the meantime, not being a big fan of delayed gratification, God does still want to smite at least a few of them. He does this in two steps. First, he sends a plague down on the ten spies who messed up his plan. I'm not sure how one arranges such a specifically targeted plague, but since he is All Knowing, maybe he knew they were going to be difficult beforehand and while they were playing at being secret agents he guided them in the path of acquiring some Canaanite STDs during their forty days in amongst the heathens. In my five minutes of research trying to figure out why God has such a poor opinion of those people it does seem that they are reported to have been a society of, shall we say, swingers. 

The amateur spies may have seen too many Bond movies and behaved accordingly.

    The general population Israelites, seeing how things are going and not wanting any more generalized plagues heading their way, put down their "Heck No! We Won't Go!" signs and banners and decide the best way to get back on God's good side is by marching into Canaan like they had agreed to way back when. But since he is still peeved at them, God doesn't go along to be their co-pilot, as it were, and it turns into a bit of an OT Bay of Pigs. 

45) Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them, pursuing them as far as Hormah.

    No, I do not know where Hormah is, but it doesn't sound like an all-inclusive resort.

    Just as the whole Will They Invade or Won't They Invade story is getting really interesting, Chapter 15 takes us off on another tangent with what seems to me to be yet another repeat of God's instructions about how he likes his sacrifices. There isn't anything in the thirty-one verses about this that is new as far as I can tell, so we'll just move on to the other two topics in the chapter. If you've become a sacrifices aficionado you're welcome to take the deep dive. 

    First, we are treated to the story of the man who goes out to gather sticks on the sabbath. This is during the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness days. Some of his fellow wanderers get wind of his activities so they grab him by the scruff of the robe and haul him off to stand in front of Moses to explain himself. Moses, of course, consults with God about how to handle the miscreant and God, of course, tells Moses that stick gathering on the sabbath merits death by stoning. The congregation complies with some gusto. Nothing like a good stoning to bring a community together.

    The last bit in this chapter has to do with God telling Moses that he wants everyone to wear fringe and a blue cord all the time. This is because he thinks it will remind the people not to misbehave. Kind of like a string around your wrist is supposed to help you remember something. I guess. My experience with people favoring fringe has been variable.

    Now back to some larger scale infractions, this time involving three gents by the name of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, all of which set off the spellcheck. It's pretty serious stuff, so if the Baby Name Consultant**** you're working with suggests any of those names I think it would be wise to request more choices. I know some folks like to name their kids after characters in the Bible and these three did get their names in the title of Chapter 16, but not for a good reason, as you will see.

Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram

    So what are they revolting against you may ask? Well, they're members of Team Levite, you know, the ones who work in the tabernacle. They're not Aaron's immediate kin so they're not priests, but still, they've got what I think most of the Israelites probably considered to be some of the more prestigious jobs to be had. But that's not good enough for Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and the two hundred and fifty fellow Levites they convince to come along with them. They're unhappy about the fact that God talks with Moses, and sort of talks with Aaron and Sons, and they think it has given those four an unappealing sort of outsized opinion of themselves. When they tell Moses this he does what the men of the time do when confronted with astonishing news: he falls on his face. Really, it's in verse 4.

4)When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.

    See?

    After he stands back up and wipes the desert dust from his eyebrows Moses tries to explain why things are the way they are and how some people are destined to be management and others worker bees, but the three ringleaders and their two hundred and fifty fellow grumblers don't understand, so they get their incense burners and gather in front of the tabernacle to stage a rally.

    God sees what's going on and he tells Moses and Aaron and Sons to back off, he's got this. He waits until Korah, Dathan, and Abiram have gone back to their tents, tells everyone else to give him some room, waits for the three ringleaders to obligingly step out of their tents with their entire families, and opens up the ground beneath their feet so they can...

go down alive into Sheol*****

    Yep, the ringleaders, their families and all their household goods get the old trap door treatment. And right after that, in verse 35...

35)And fire came out from the Lords and consumed the two hundred fifty men offering the incense

    It's like they hadn't gotten the memo about what happened to Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu and their experiences with ill-timed incense burning.

    As if things weren't bad enough, just about everyone else gets their drawers in a bunch about what has just happened to Korah and Company they start yelling at Moses and Aaron. Like it's their fault. Yet again God feels he needs to step in to calm things down and his go-to method for that is to kill everybody; a plan he sets in motion with another plague. If it wasn't for the fact that Aaron does some quick running into the midst of the congregation with his own special incense formulation that acts as a sort of vaccine against Divinely Inspired Plagues, God's intention to end the whole Israelite Experiment would have come to a successful conclusion. As it is, only 14,700 dead. Plus, of course, the two hundred fifty and the three unfortunate households. But still, considering they've still got two million people who escaped the smiting, I think that is what we call an Old Testament Happy Ending. 

*We had a nice sunrise yesterday. It was ninety-three degrees at 5:45 AM, but the sky was pretty.

**Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Methuselah

• ***Apache, Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, LaPaz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yavapai, Yuma

****There is at least one such consultant out there charging $295 for a five minute session. I'm thinking blogging about the Bible maybe wasn't my most lucrative late in life career choice.

*****I looked it up, and Sheol is the place of darkness where dead people go awaiting their judgment, or some sort of thing like that. The Hebrew faith doesn't seem to have quite the same sort of concept of Heaven and Hell as a lot of us might understand it, but perhaps Sheol could be described as having some of the features of both Hell and Purgatory. References to it in the OT are usually rather brief and sketchy, but it doesn't sound like a happy place to be sent to all of a sudden, even if you are with your wife and kids. Or maybe especially if you are with your wife and kids.