Chapter 13

Have you ever choked?

No, not getting something caught in your throat, that’s not what I mean. I mean the sporting definition – in position to achieve something, then losing your nerve . . .

Because what we’re looking at in Numbers chapter 13 is the day that the people of Israel choked. And that led to really drastic consequences.

In verses 1 – 16 we are given a list of people who are sent on a vitally important mission (itself outlined in vs 17 – 20) – to spy out the land of Canaan, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and to verify that it really is as God has described it – “a good land . . . a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8 and several others). Note that this isn’t so much a matter of “Find out if God is telling the truth”. God has commanded the mission, so it’s actually “See for yourself that what I’m telling you is true!”

I have heard several sermons on this event, and usually they give pretty bad press to the spies. To be fair, I’m about to do just that, but before that I wanted to point out something I have noticed about these 12 spies.

It’s in verse 2 and 3 – the men are described as “Leaders”. Did you catch that? God didn’t say “Pick some random from each tribe. Better make each one someone expendable just in case they get caught during the mission!” No, God told them to send leaders. These 12 men were the best that the tribes of Israel had to offer. They weren’t cowards; they were experienced military men.

The point I am getting to here is this – Most Christians know that the 12 spies recommended against going into the land of Canaan (their report is seen from vs 21 – 33). But I think we usually infer from the passage that of the 12 guys, 10 of them were chickens and two of them were REAL MEN. With GUTS.

That’s not how it was at all. All 12 of these guys were brave leaders. No, they weren’t chickening out.

When you read the report, the first part is a description of the monster cluster of grapes the men brought home. And in verses 28 and 29, a précis is given of the assessment these experienced military men gave.

They had looked at the tactical situation, and considered the resources they possessed. And in their opinion, they did not have the resources needed for this mission. They saw the defences they would have to overcome, the soldiers arrayed against them, and came to the conclusion that they simply couldn’t win.

No, they weren’t chickening out. They were making a sober and seemingly wise decision.

Caleb, on the other hand, is someone we first really get to know in verse 30. I just love the drama of this sequence. It says that he “interrupted, calling for silence.” Can you just see it? These men are all delivering their “Serious” report, with their “Serious” faces on, when suddenly Caleb gets tired of the naysaying and tells them to all “SHUT UP!”

And then, when all eyes are on him, he gets that gleam in his eye (Nobody knows it, yet, but Canaanites forty years and more into the future are going to get to know that look – and fear it!), grins and says “We can take them!”

As I said, these men aren’t wimps or cowards. So why is it that they are different to Caleb?

It’s not about their guts or their spines. It’s not even about their military mindset. It’s about trust. Or to use the words coined by J.B. Phillips, “Your God is too small!”

The problem was that if you looked at this situation from a purely military perspective, the ten spies were RIGHT. They knew that there were about 603,550 fighting men in the army of the Israelites – and that that was far too small an army to take such a large land. And to be fair, the military situation wasn’t good. The Israelites probably were armed with little more than a dagger or a bone spear (with the occasional “hero” carrying a sword or a bronze-tipped spear), and they lacked siege engines like catapults and rams (which were important when attacking well entrenched positions such as Jericho). If you relied on what was seen, they had no chance. So the spies were absolutely, 100% correct. By the way, I won’t be hassling their military skills or their bravery!

But they hadn’t taken into account the things they’d already seen along this journey. In applying normal military logic, they failed to take into account that they’d been commanded to take this land by a God who had ALREADY led them out of Egypt without even drawing their swords, and who had (as we saw a couple of days back) kept the miracles coming. They’d forgotten this.

Caleb hadn’t. He (and as we later learn, Joshua) recognized that God had His hand on the entire assembly, so he took the approach that we learn from Proverbs 3:5 (Trust the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight[1]) and from 2 Corithians 4:7 (For we live by faith, not by sight).

This isn’t to say that Caleb was reckless, or a fool. He was anything but. He knew the facts of the situation as well as the other guys. But he had better Situational Awareness (to use a military term) in that he recognized that the Lord, the God of Israel, was one enormously potent asset that these other military minds had failed to take into account!

So what about us? Are we facing a situation where to do what God wants is going to take more than we’ve got?

I think this is very often the case. God really wants us to live supernatural lives, and whilst we are looking at the physical situation, that’s hard to do.

So really the question is simple. Of course we have a good knowledge of how things look from an Earthly perspective; but do we see GOD like Caleb – or like the rest of the spies?

If you had to choose whether to be Caleb or one of the ten forgotten spies, I think Caleb’s the one to go for!

[1] This may be an awkward hodge-podge of Bible versions. It’s the wording I remember off by heart, which is probably drawn from a couple. My close friends have taken to calling my own version of the Bible the Hughes International Version (HIV) . . .