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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Numbers 32:6-13

But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them? Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the Lord had given them. And the Lord's anger was kindled on that day, and he swore, saying, ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me, none except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.’ And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone. (ESV)

by Dale E. Rood

God is looking for people who wholeheartedly seek him. Moses here is expressing concern to the Gadites and Reubenites who want to remain on land east of the Jordan River, therefore threatening to weaken Israel as they prepare to cross Jordan to conquer the promised land. He reminds them how the spies they had selected 38 years earlier had discouraged Israel by the bad report of the land they wanted to enter. Then he notes how Joshua and Caleb did not join in this bad report. This was because Joshua and Caleb were wholeheartedly seeking God. This is the sort of person God is looking for to lead.



Copyright Information

Daily Bible Meditations are taken from The Helping Hand,a Sabbath School student quarterly for youth and adults. Copyright © 2010, Seventh Day Baptist Board of Christian Education, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service.