Numbers 13
Moses sends out 12 spies to reconnoitre the promised land.
Their remit is to discover what the land is like, what the inhabitants are like, do they have large fortified cities or do they live in towns?
They are requested to bring back something of the land to demonstrate what the land is like.
I think the next bit is funny - the spies return to camp carrying a massive bunch of grapes and tell the people The land is flowing with milk and honey and just to demonstrate here are some grapes.
Well I think it is funny.
The downside of the report is that the spies say that the land is really good, but the inhabitants are in massive heavily fortified towns, there are different hostile tribes living in the region and some of them seem totally impregnable.
Only Caleb (who shares a name with a fellow student at university who was on Christian union committee with me) advocates going in and taking the land they have been promised.
The other spies say if the Israelites try and take the land they would be squashed like grasshoppers.
There are some interesting points on this exploration - the Israelite army is over 600,000 strong, an army that size must have surely been a match for a fortified city.
Something is telling that the inhabitants live in fortified cities - nobody will build fortifications that are not necessary either for actual defence or for symbolic defence
It seems to me that strong defences actually show up that the people fear attack and don't actually have a strong enough force to repel invaders outright - they have to have a strong hold to fall back to. These people may not be secure in the land.
Moses sends out 12 spies to reconnoitre the promised land.
Their remit is to discover what the land is like, what the inhabitants are like, do they have large fortified cities or do they live in towns?
They are requested to bring back something of the land to demonstrate what the land is like.
I think the next bit is funny - the spies return to camp carrying a massive bunch of grapes and tell the people The land is flowing with milk and honey and just to demonstrate here are some grapes.
Well I think it is funny.
The downside of the report is that the spies say that the land is really good, but the inhabitants are in massive heavily fortified towns, there are different hostile tribes living in the region and some of them seem totally impregnable.
Only Caleb (who shares a name with a fellow student at university who was on Christian union committee with me) advocates going in and taking the land they have been promised.
The other spies say if the Israelites try and take the land they would be squashed like grasshoppers.
There are some interesting points on this exploration - the Israelite army is over 600,000 strong, an army that size must have surely been a match for a fortified city.
Something is telling that the inhabitants live in fortified cities - nobody will build fortifications that are not necessary either for actual defence or for symbolic defence
It seems to me that strong defences actually show up that the people fear attack and don't actually have a strong enough force to repel invaders outright - they have to have a strong hold to fall back to. These people may not be secure in the land.
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