Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 14-15.

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I could write about a few things from today’s passage.  I am going to start with something where I make a supposition which is not supported by anything in the text (but which is not refuted by anything in the text).  The passage tells us that the ten spies who gave the report which discouraged the Israelites from invading the land died by plague before the Lord.  Many people read this as happening immediately after God told the Israelites that He would have them wander in the wilderness and before the Israelites attempted to invade against God’s command.  I don’t think that is what the passage means to tell us.  It merely tells us that they died by plague.  The other thing is that this plague did not spread among the rest of the Israelites.  Which makes me wonder if it was some kind of sexually transmitted disease(STD) which the spies picked up while they were on the spying mission.  In support of that supposition, we know that the Canaanites (I am using this for all of the peoples living in the Land at the time) instituted sexual practices in their worship.  Archeology also sees signs that STDs were endemic in ancient Canaan.  So, perhaps the reason that the spies became so convinced that the Israelites could not conquer the people of Canaan was because they had joined in the sexual practices of the people of the land.  The reason I hold out this possibility is that we can see as we study “thinkers” throughout history that people are often influenced by their immoral behavior to hold views which run counter to God’s commands.  We must be careful not to allow our sins to cloud our minds to what God is telling us.

There is another lesson in this that I want to write about.  After God threatened to wipe out the people of Israel and build Himself a new people upon Moses’ descendants, Moses begged God to pardon the people.  God agreed to pardon the people, but also declared that, aside from Caleb and Joshua, none of those who were counted in the census taken at Mount Sinai would enter into the land.  So, their sin was forgiven, but there were still consequences to that sin.  In the same way, we may suffer consequences from the sins which God has forgiven through Christ.  In fact, even their children suffered as a consequence of their sin.  God forgave them and did not destroy them.  He even continued to travel with them as He led them through the wilderness through the rest of their lives.  Nevertheless, they had to live with the consequences of their sin in disobeying God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.