From Mt. Sinai the Israelites set out for the Promised Land,
the land of Canaan. Along the way, time and again, they murmured in
dissatisfaction and resentment against their journey. The Lord punished them
for this, but on account of the prayers of Moses, pardoned them.
Even his own sister, Miriam, and Aaron reproached
Moses for having married an Ethiopian and thus abusing his dignity as an envoy
of God. Moses was the meekest of all the people and patiently bore their
reproaches. The Lord punished Miriam with leprosy. Aaron, seeing that his
sister had leprosy, said to Moses, "Because we have acted foolishly and
sinned, do not deliver us into harm."
Then Moses ardently besought God to cure his
sister, and the Lord healed her, but only after she had spent seven days in
confinement outside the camp.
When the Israelites reached the border of the
Promised Land, in the Paran desert, at God’s command, Moses sent observers to
survey the Promised Land. Twelve men were chosen, one from each tribe. Among
those chosen were Caleb, from the tribe of Judah, and Joshua,
from the tribe of Ephraim.
When the observers had traversed the whole country
and surveyed it, they returned in forty days. They brought with them a branch
of a grapevine they had cut off there with a bunch of grapes. The branch was so
big that two men had to carry it on a pole. They also brought pomegranates and
figs. All of them praised the fruitful earth. But ten of the twelve men who had
been sent, all except Caleb and Joshua, stirred up the people, saying,
"The nation that dwells upon it is powerful. They have very great and
strong-walled towns. We will not go, for we shall not by any means be able to stand
up against the nation, for it is much stronger than us. There we saw such
giants before whom we were like grasshoppers."
Then the Israelites started to wail and murmur
against Aaron and Moses, saying, "Why does the Lord bring us into this
land, to perish by the sword? Our wives and our children shall be plunder for
the enemy. Now then, it is better to return to Egypt."
Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb persuaded the people
not to go against the Lord’s will, for the Lord Himself would help them to
conquer the land which God had promised to their fathers. But the Israelites
conspired to stone Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb, appoint a new leader and
turn back.
Then the glory of the Lord in the form of a cloud
appeared in the tabernacle in front of all the people, and the Lord said unto
Moses, "How long does this people provoke Me, and how long do they refuse
to believe Me for all the signs which I have wrought among them? Say to them,
‘As I live saith the Lord, ‘surely as ye spoke into My ears so will I do to you.
Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and all that murmured against Me
shall not enter into the land for which I stretched out My hand to establish
you upon it, except for Caleb and Joshua, the son of Nun. Tomorrow turn and get
you into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea. And your little
ones, whom ye said would become a prey shall inherit the land which you
rejected. According to the number of the days during which you spied the land,
forty days, you shall bear your sins for every day a year, unto forty years,
that ye may know what it is to be abandoned by Me.’"
The ten spies, who by their unfavorable reports
concerning the land had stirred up the people, were immediately stricken to
death in front of the tabernacle. Having heard this condemnation of their sin,
the Israelites did not wish to submit to the Lord’s command and to go where
they had been bidden. They said, "Behold, we that are here will go up to
the place of which the Lord has spoken. We have sinned." This was as if to
say, "We will now go and take the land. We repent of our sin. Why should
we be punished for forty years?" Moses said to them, "Why do you
transgress the word of the Lord? You shall not prosper." And he remained
with the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant in the encampment.
Against God’s will, the Israelites dared to ascend
the mountain, to the top where the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living.
They were defeated and fled. So for forty years they wandered in the deserts of
Sinai. Even during this time, however, the merciful Lord did not abandon them
but visited them with many miracles.
Soon after being condemned to wander for forty
years, a new revolt arose among the Israelites. Certain of them, whose leader
was Korah, an elder of one of the tribes, were unhappy that the priesthood was
a privilege only of the house of Aaron. Therefore the Lord punished them: the
earth opened up and swallowed the rebels.
In order to end the arguments among the Israelites
as to whom the priesthood belonged, Moses, at God’s command, ordered that all
the elders bring their staffs and place them for the night in the tabernacle.
The next day everyone saw that the rod of Aaron had blossomed, shooting buds,
flowering, and bearing almonds. Everyone then recognized Aaron as the high
priest. At God’s command, the rod of Aaron was placed in front of the Ark of
the Covenant.
On another occasion, because of their murmuring
against God, the Israelites were punished by a plague of poisonous snakes which
bit the people and caused many to die. The Israelites repented and asked Moses
to intercede for them before God. The Lord commanded Moses to make a bronze
serpent and to place it on a pole. Whoever had been bitten, and with faith
looked on the bronze serpent, remained alive.
This bronze serpent served as a prefiguration of
Christ the Saviour. Christ was crucified on the Cross for all our sins. Now we,
looking upon Him with faith, are healed of our sins and saved from eternal
death.
During the forty-year wandering, all the adult
Israelites who had come out of Egypt died, except for Joshua and Caleb. A new
generation grew up which was destined to enter the Promised Land. Moses died in
the last year of their wandering. Before his death, he appointed Joshua, son of
Nun, as leader to replace him.
Note: See
Numbers, chaps. 11-14, 16-17, 21:4-9 and Deuteronomv chap. 1:19-46.
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