BIBLE HISTORY - Classic Works of Apologetics

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198 ISRAEL'S REBELLION PUNI.SHEI).
were not courageous enough to make the invasion
in Jehovah's name, related to them a series
of bcts which showed Israel's lack of true
valor and faith. "Only the people is strong
which occupieth the lanll, and the cities fortified,
very great, and also descendants of the
Anak have we seen there" I - th i" was their
hesitant message to timid Hebrews. Caleb and
Joshua, faithful to the idea that Jehovah i" all
anel in all, did their utmost to stay their panic;
but, so great \Va" the general despair, that
"the congregation lifted up their voice and
cried"" the 'whole night long. It was the 01(1
pitiful unbelief that again put Canaan far away,
though its edge might have been seen from
yoneler mountain tops. They moaned for the
low securities and safeties of Egypt's slavery.
Their fear of death at the hands of Canaanites
made them wish they had met lieath under
Pharaoh - so strange is the introversion of
doubt. They proposed to choose another general,
that they might return. Moses and Aaron
could only prostrate themselves, dumb before
Jehovah, almost disheartened by the din of
mutillY about them. \Vhen Caleb and Joshua
ventured to speak words of faith in Jehovah
and his po\\-er to lea(l them against all foes
whats')ever, Israel demanded that they should
be stoned. It was a rejection of the Almighty
One which outraged Jehovah's forbearance.
He declared he would smite them with a pestilence;
and, faithful still to his promise that
"a great nation" should be made, he proposed
to make it out of Moses-" a minority of one
with God." Quality, not quantity, makes
greatness rather than higness. This roused
the mediator, and brought out his real greatness.
"The glory of Jehovah appeared in the
tent of meeting to all Israel." a Moses pleaded,
and his argument before Jehovah -a prayer of
eager faith, shot through and through with
javelins of doubt - is an heroic appeal. It
goes deep into the nature of Jehovah-the
God of the covenant. It claims all the resources
of goodness, which is Jehovah's glory; and it
claims them for disobedient Israel. The answer
\vas: .. Jehovah will preserve the nation "; but
not a man of age, save Caleb and Joshua, will
be permitted to enter Canaan; and, according
to the number of the days which the spies
spent in searching, shall be the number of their
years of wandering. The old stock must die off.
A more valiant nation must grow up to enter
Canaan. The other ten spies were smitten by
the plague.' Jehovah's judgments are not arbitrary
; they coinhere with the nature of truth,
and man and God. Responsible and rebellious
belief cannot enter any Canaan. The impossibilities
rise out of the nature of the mind it-
1 Nunlbers xiii, 28.
3 Numbers xiv, 10.
2 Numbers xiv, I.
4 Numbers xiv, 20-38.
self. Doubt is a death-laden plague to all souls
that have already been at Sinai and heard the
law.
Now the pendulum swung from this utter
faithlessness to audacIOUS, unguided presumption.
They leaped at the Amalekites and were
sorely repulsed. Moses and the Ark of the
Covenant of Jehovah had not gone with them,
in this attack. First, they had forgotten
Jehovah in the faithless weakness which feared
such as were the Amalekites; now they haci
forgotten Jehovah in their self-willed -assertion
of power. The result was, Can:1an was
theirs but yesterday; to-day it is thirty-eight
years away.
Of that thirty and eight years we have hut
the slightest chronicle; but the events which
have come to us from the hands of the historian
are all determinative and character-making
in the life of Israel and Moses. From Kadesh,
"after many days," they moved" by the
way to the Red Sea." 1 Across this great series
of plains, broken with chains of hills and manv
wadies, the loftiest plain being about 2,000 fe;t
above the sea, the vast procession marched,
slowly learning the nature and cost of freedom.
Modern travelers have found how easily this
wilderness coulll have sustained the multitude
of Israel and their flocks and herds. \Vater
is easily obtained, resen-oirs were doubtless
made in the torrent-beds, atlfi Egypt had
taught Hebrewdom the practice of irrigation.
Doves flew thick through the summer air; and
herds of camels, goats, sheep and asses fell
along the uplands and valleys. Here they
would not utterly perish, although they must
wait long to learn that the freedom and selfgovernment,
which, with Jehovah, is not
heroic enough to overcome the Anak-children
of passion and sordid ambition, and the Canaanite
prejudices and hostilities which e,-ery
truth encounters, as well as to enjoy the Eshcol
clusters of blessing, is not worth having
even as an unearned gift.
Two rebellions - each of which deepened
the character of the loyalists of Israel and
helped to exemplify the real nature of just
government - occurred in the wilderness. A
man was caught gathering sticks on the sabbath
day. Amidst our contemporary sabbath
breaking, little knowing how surely the life of
man grows unsacred with the decay of such
institutions, and that, in consequence, much of
the anarchy of the day may be its product, we
are amazed at the instant and awful punishment
which came upon the offender. The law
was inexorable. There it stood on the statute
books of Israel. The sinner suffered the punishment
of death. Perhaps soon, either by
I Deuteronomy i, 40.
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