Roadmap for the soul - Judaism, the bible and the tabernacle

Returning to our story,
we find that God now tells Moses to send some spies ahead, into the promised land ---

Numbers 13:2 "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel..."

When the spies return, they bring a mixed report...
On the one hand, they bring good news---

Numbers 13:27 "...We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey..."

But they also say ---

Numbers 13:28 "...the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large..."

Even so, one of the spies, a man named Caleb, has confidence in God's ability to fulfill His promise, and he says ---

Numbers 13:30 "...Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it."

But the majority of spies overrule him, saying ---

Numbers 13:31-32 "...We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. (v.32) And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land..."

Upon hearing this ---

Numbers 14:2-3 "...all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! (v.3) Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?"

In order to really understand what is going on here, we must remember that
God has promised that this land is to become Israel's "everlasting possession" .

But do the people believe God?

Apparently not...
After hearing the spies report,
instead of believing in God's ability to bring His promise to fruition,
the people immediately express a complete lack of confidence in Him.

As you might expect, God is less than pleased with this response ---

Numbers 14:11 And the Lord said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?"

As the passage above indicates, God is not happy, and the consequences would have been quite severe if Moses had not appealed to Him for mercy. 45 As a result of Moses' intercession, God relents somewhat, but the people still end up paying quite a price for their disbelief ---

Numbers 14:20-23 Then the Lord said: "I have pardoned according to your word; (v.21) but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord- (v.22) because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, (v.23) they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it".

Numbers 14:29 "The carcasses of you who have murmured against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above".

As a result of their disbelief, Israel has now been sentenced to spend forty years in the wilderness. 46
During that time, those over the age of 20 are to die.

The real point of all this is that once again, it is being demonstrated that ---
'Disbelief' is the root of 'sin', and 'disbelief' eventually leads to 'death'.

It was 'disbelief' (in God's authority and boundaries) that first led Satan to rebel against God.

Similarly, it was 'disbelief' (in God's authority and boundaries) that led mankind to do likewise.

And in both cases, as we've seen, 'disbelief' leads to 'death' (or 'separation from God').

Our current story is simply giving us another 'real-world' demonstration of this principle...

Here, we are being shown that those who have been tainted by the 'slavery' of sin (as represented by Israel's 'slavery' in Egypt) are rendered incapable of consistently committing to God's authority.... Because of the unstoppable 'leaven of sin / disbelief', they are unfit to enter and take "everlasting possession" of the 'promised land' (as represented by both the area within the tabernacle & the physical land of Canaan here on earth).

They must therefore die... here in the wilderness.

The tabernacle's symbolism illustrates all this in a 'visual' way ---

As we've seen previously, the altar represents 'shed-blood', or more precisely, 'death'...
Its position in the outer court basically says, "Because you are infected with the leaven of sin (or 'disbelief'),
you can go no farther... you must die here".

Even Moses 47 and Aaron (the High Priest) 48 are destined to die in the wilderness..

It is probably worth pointing out that this does not mean that Moses and Aaron never got to the 'ultimate promised land' of 'heaven'... It simply means that at this stage in the bible's story, the true means of accessing the 'promised land' has not yet arrived. When the means finally does arrive, it will in a sense apply 'retroactively' to those who 'died in faith' 49... Don't worry.

So... What is it going to take to finally enter the promised land, anyway?

Well... in the next chapter, God gives us a clue.
And He does this in quite an interesting way...

NEXT CHAPTER

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