Scripture Daily

Context No. 3853 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 14:20-35: in context

20The LORD said, “I have pardoned according to your word; 21but in very deed—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the LORD’s glory— 22because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; 23surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it. 24But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went. His offspring shall possess it. 25Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” 26The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, which they complain against me. 28Tell them, ‘As I live, says the LORD, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. 29Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, 30surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. 31But I will bring in your little ones that you said should be captured or killed, and they shall know the land which you have rejected. 32But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness. 34After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’ 35I, the LORD, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”

After the people, terrified by the spies' report, refuse to enter the promised land, God pardons them from immediate destruction, yet declares that the unbelieving generation will not see the land; they will wander in the wilderness forty years until that generation passes. Their unbelief cost them the very thing God had promised them.

But one man is singled out for a different destiny: my servant Caleb, God says, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land. Two things stand out. The cost of unbelief. The people had seen God's power in Egypt and the wilderness, yet would not trust him to bring them in, and their refusal to believe shut them out of the promise. And the reward of wholehearted faith. Caleb had a different spirit; where the others saw only giants, he trusted God fully, and he would enter the land the others forfeited. When God calls us forward, unbelief can keep us from what he has promised, while a different spirit, one that follows him fully and trusts him against the odds, lays hold of it.

When God calls me forward, do I shrink back in unbelief like the crowd, or do I have the different spirit of Caleb, following God fully and trusting him even against what my fears can see?

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