February 14, 2020: Day 13 – Numbers 13

The people of Israel are approaching the promised land so Moses sends out some lead agents to get a feel for the land and to bring back a report of what the land is like.  The report is supposed to include some tangible signs of what the land is like as well as a report on their military establishments.  Don’t pass over vs. 8 where we are introduced to Hoshea, son of Nun who then is clarified in vs.16 as the one whose name was changed to Joshua without explanation.  We should take note that name changes are pretty frequent and they always represent a pretty significant and dramatic change in the life of the individual involved.  We don’t hear about a change in the life of Hoshea which required his name to become Joshua.  But, we know what will become of Joshua so keep your eye on him as we go along in Numbers.

He is mentioned as one of the spies that were being sent out into the promised land to get a read on what the land was like.  They all go out and they find grapes the size of whose clusters were so big that they had to be carried by two people.  The same for the figs and the pomegranates, it was just a very impressive area with very impressive produce.  They set out for forty days.  Don’t let that number pass you by either.  Noah and the ark had 40 days.  The wilderness will reflect a 40 year wandering.  It is a time period which always seems to be just enough to get whatever job needs to be done to get done.  

The spies come back and they are all pretty much unanimous in their report except for one.  They all say: Yeah, pretty amazing stuff over there but the people and the fortifications are way too advanced and sophisticated for us to even have a chance of doing anything to take it from them.  Let’s just call it good and go look for something else.  Caleb, however, was the only outlier who said no, we should go right now for God has placed that land in our hands.  You would think that Joshua would have taken Caleb’s side.  But we don’t hear one way or the other about him.  So when you have all the other spies saying that there is no way that we can go into that land or we will be smushed, that will be the general consensus.  We will see that this is exactly what happens in our next chapter.  Folks are pretty bummed out.