민수기 Chapter 14

Translation: ESV

1

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.

Key Message

The tears of unbelief prevent us from receiving God's promise; a night spent in fear can extend our time in the wilderness.

▸After the negative report of the spies, all of Israel weeps through the night.

After the negative report of the spies, all of Israel weeps through the night. This weeping is an expression of the fear that comes from unbelief in God's promise. Weeping before the good land God has given means they saw their own fear as larger than God's gift. The weeping of that night becomes the starting point of forty years of wilderness wandering.

4

And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt."

Key Message

Unbelief causes us to reject God's guidance and seek our own way; when freedom becomes frightening, the temptation comes to return to a familiar state of slavery.

▸As the extreme expression of unbelief, Israel proposes appointing a new leader and returning to Egypt.

8

If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.

Key Message

It matters to raise a voice of faith even as a minority; the courage to proclaim God's promise in an atmosphere of fear saves the community.

▸Joshua and Caleb proclaim the word of faith in the face of the people's rebellion.

18

'The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.'

Key Message

God's own name and character are the most powerful basis for intercessory prayer; petitioning God on the basis of God's word, as Moses did, is effective prayer.

▸Moses, interceding before God, bases his petition on God's own nature.

22

none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice,

Key Message

Experiencing miracles does not automatically produce faith; faith is not the accumulation of experiences but the opening of the heart toward God.

▸The expression 'ten times' emphasizes Israel's repeated unbelief.

34

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.'

Key Message

The consequences of unbelief inevitably follow, and God's judgment is proportionate to the sin. Yet even within judgment, God leaves hope for the next generation.

▸God's judgment is declared: forty days of spying results in forty years of wilderness life.