Giving and Receiving

By BenedicteBahjejian

Numbers 13:1-14:10

Introduction: contemporary version of the promised land

There was once somewhere in NZ a man who had a teenage son. This son just passed his full licence a week ago and he was talking about buying a new car. His dad, who wanted to please and surprise him, bought him for his 18th birthday, which was very soon, with most of his savings, one of the newest Holden car, a black Holden Astra Coupe with 3 doors, 5 seats, 6 speed, Manual, Front Wheel Drive, 9.4L of fuel/100km, driver and passenger airbags for his safety, 6 disc & 7 speaker stereo for his entertainment. He thought he would really surprise his son with this AMAZING gift.
On the birth day, he brought the car home and showed it to his son, who, at his great surprise, before even saying thank you, his son started to criticise the car he had bought saying: ‘I don’t like Holden! I didn’t want a Holden, I wanted to buy a BMW 1 Series Convertible, and I wanted it yellow! The same as my friend Andrew. Holden is just rubbish; I’m not even going to drive it. You can bring it back to your stupid seller.’ And off he run to his room and slammed the door behind him.
Þ If you were the teenager’s dad, what would you feel?

Read Numbers 13:1-3 & 13:17- 14:10


Plan of text + brief summary

13:1-16 Moses sends 12 men, 1 of each tribe to explore Canaan
13: 17- 20 Moses’ instructions
13:21-24 Story of the 40 days travel
13:25-29 Back to Kadesh and their report
13:30 Caleb quiets people who grumbled against Moses & encourages them to go & fight

13:31-33 10 men give bad report of land & report seeing giants
14:1-4 People of Israel complain against Moses & Aaron and cry during night & want to go back to Egypt

14:5-9 Moses, Aaron fall on their faces & Joshua & Caleb spoke to congregation to go and not rebel against God

14:10 Congregation speak of stoning them but the glory of God appeared
Observation
Where did the spies go? v. 21&26
{ Place of departure: Kadesh in wilderness of Paran
{ Route: from Kadesh, then from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. And they went up through the South and came to Hebron. Then from Hebron to the Valley of Eshcol (Cluster)
{ Distance: from Kadesh to Hebron= 122 kms or 76 miles

What and who did they see? v. 23-29
{ In Hebron, they saw Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak (13:22)
{ In the valley of Eshcol, they saw huge clusters of grapes and brought back one of them, pomegranates and figs (13:23)
{ They saw milk and honey flowing in the land (13:27)
{ Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. (13:29)
A good or a bad report of the land according to the 12 men?
{ Partially good because of the variety and abundance of food
{ Partially bad because of the people who live there

Background: Canaan before the Hebrews
Crime of Ham and curse on Canaan
Canaan was the son of Ham. Ham discovered Noah "undressed naked" while Noah was sleeping off some wine (Genesis 9:22) and Noah when he woke up cursed Cannaan, Ham’s son (Genesis 9:25).
As a result of their eponymous ancestor's crime the Bible indicates that Canaanites in Israel's eyes were seen as an increasingly sexually very depraved people (Leviticus 18:27). Thus the land of the Canaanites (specifically the Amorites, Hivites, Hethites, Girgashites and Jebusites) was deemed suitable for conquest by the Israelites on moral grounds.
Where did the giants come from?

The land of Canaan obviously has had visits by "the sons of God" some time after the days of the Flood, because now it was inhabited by giants, who were widely renown, as were their predecessors. God had been forced to exterminate the worldat Naoh’s time, because it had been made unclean by angel hybrids, and now also the nations of Canaan, with their hybrid races, were doomed to destruction.
The observation by the spies of Moses occurred about 1500 years before Christ.

The ungodliness in Canaan after the Flood consisted of all kinds of perverse and unnatural mingling, typical for the fallen angels. There were many different nations living in Canaan at the time, but the children of Anak are especially mentioned here, just ahead of the very conquest of the land, as well as their ungodliness.

Canaanite gods & goddesses (article from the American Bible Society website)
The Canaanites worshiped many gods and goddesses who, together, formed a council. El (“god”), the father of the other gods and humanity, was head of the council. He lived in a cosmic paradise where the other gods came to see him.
Baal (“master” or “lord”) also was known as Hadad. As the most popular god among the people, Baal gradually took over many of the roles and characteristics of El. He was worshiped by the Canaanites as the storm god who brought rain and made land and flocks fertile.
The Canaanite goddesses were primarily fertility goddesses who were believed to provide healthy crops and large harvests, as well as increases in the flocks. Asherah (also known as Astarte) was the mother of seventy of the gods, and the wife of El in the early myths. In later stories, however, she supported Baal when he asked El for power.

God’s promises about the land:
{ ‘Evil’ report from the 10 spies (14:27-29) but what is God’s description of the land in other passages of the Bible? Exodus 3:8

{ People wept during the night and murmured against Aaron & Moses. What do you think God felt at that moment?
Do you remember the story I told you at the beginning? Is there any common points?
God’s answer: You are a stiff-necked people. Ex 33: 5
The Lord God will not come up with them as He may consume them, but He will send his angel to go with them, and He will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Exodus 33:2-3

{ But Joshua & Caleb stood up against the croud to quiet them and spoke with faith to go up & fight these giants (Caleb: 13:30, Joshua & Caleb: 14:6-9).
Later on, it is Joshua who destroyed the Anakim. Joshua 11:21-22

Interpretation
There is a contradiction between what God says about the land he promised to GIVE his people and the report the 10 spies brought back to the people. What they saw both amazed and terrified them, and they gave up their faith in God because of what their eyes saw. Did they forget God’s word: I’m going to drive your enemies out of the land, do not be afraid, I HAVE GIVEN you this land? In their rebellion & anger, all they could think about was … to go back to Egypt! Is there anything more irritating for God than to hear his people wanting to back to a land of idols and slavery? Was it not obvious, looking at God’s instructions to the spies, that God knew the land and that He wanted them to discover it and see all its goodness?

Application: lessons for us for today
¯ Sometimes, things seem in our sight like mountains or giants, we make them so big and ourselves so little that we fear and they become more powerful than God himself. But God asks us to trust in Him.
¯ God knew the land he was giving his dearly loved people, the same as He knows the land He is leading us to. He asks us to trust in Him for the next step we are going to make.

¯ God gives us generously, but what kind of receivers are we?
Are you like Joshua and Caleb who wanted to fight in order to possess the land God had prepared for his people, or are you like the teenage son in the story and the people of Israel who slammed the door at their father because the gift was not what they expected?

{ In the story, the son did not look at the good sides of the car and the fact that his dad used up almost all his savings to buy him the car, he looked at all the wrong points about the car. His heart was hardened and he had his dad feel very stupid and ashamed.

¯ Let us NOT be like the people of Israel, who were ungrateful and rebellious toward God. Let us remember God’s promises for us, this will help us to go through whatever crisis we face in life. When are not sure about where we are and what we are doing here, let us ask ourselves first: where do I come from and where am I going? Why I am at this place at this time? And let us remember God’s promises and then we will understand why we are there at that place at that moment.

At any time, God knows what He is doing. He puts clues on our way so that we would know what He expects of us. Let us faithfully follow Him and if there is anything we do not understand, before getting upset or rebellious against Him, ask Him.