To simply exclude these ten spies from Palestine, as he proposed to do with the rest of the congregation, would hardly be enough, for the rest of the Hebrews were, at most, passive, but these ten had wilfully ignored the will of Moses, or, as he expressed it, of the Lord. Therefore it was the Lord’s duty, as Moses saw it, to punish them. And this Moses proposed that the Lord should do in a prompt and awful manner: the lesson being pointed by the immunity of Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who had had the wit to divine the will of Moses. Therefore, all ten of these men died of the plague while the congregation lay encamped at Kadesh, though Joshua and Caleb remained immune.
Moses, as the commanding general of an attacking army, took a course diametrically opposed to that of Joshua, and calculated to be fatal to victory. He vented his irritation in a series of diatribes which he attributed to the “Lord,” and which discouraged and confused his men at the moment when their morale was essential to success.
Therefore, the Lord, according to Moses, went on:
“But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
“Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;
“Surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:
“But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went;...”
Having said all this, and, as far as might be, disorganized the army, Moses surrendered suddenly his point. He made the “Lord” go on to command: “Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.” But, not even yet content, Moses assured them that this retreat should profit them nothing.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.” And the Lord continued:
“Say unto them, As truly as I live, ... as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you.