With his wonted self-control Moses was content to endure these reproaches in silence. But the Lord interposed to defend the honour of His servant. The Pillar of Cloud suddenly appeared before the Tabernacle, and thither Aaron and Miriam were summoned together with Moses himself. There in words of sternrebuke the Lord denounced their hard speeches against His chosen servant. Very different was his position from that of an ordinary prophet, to whom the Divine will might be made known by vision or dream. My servant Moses, said Jehovah, is faithful in all my house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold; wherefore, then, were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? With this vindication of the true position of the Hebrew leader the Cloud removed, and Aaron looked on Miriam, and behold! she had become leprous, as white as snow. Thereupon Moses interceded for her, and the Lord promised that the judgment should not be permanent, but as unclean she must remain without the camp for seven days, during which period the host remained at Hazeroth (Num. xii. 4–16).
The days of her purification being ended, the Israelites resumed their march, and striking northwards across the plateau of the Tîh, probably after several intermediate encampments, reached Kadesh or Kadesh-Barnea (Num. xxxiii. 36). This spot, whether identified with the spring of Ain-Kŭdes, or with Ain-esh-Shehabeh south of Jebel-el-Mŭkhrah, or with Ain-el-Weibeh in the Arabah[112], was at the very gates of the Promised Land. It required but a strenuous and persevering effort to reach the final goal of their long journey. This effort Moses exhorted them to make (Deut. i. 20, 21), bidding them not be afraid, but go up boldly and possess the land, which the Lord God of their fathers had given them. On this the people proposed (Deut. i. 22) that spies should first be sent to ascertain the best route, and what cities ought first to be attacked. Moses consented to this proposal, and with the Divine concurrence selected twelve princes,one from each tribe, whom he exhorted to make a thorough search throughout the length and breadth of the land, and ascertain its character, its products, and its inhabitants (Deut. i. 23; Num. xiii. 1–20).
One of the select twelve was Hoshea, the valiant attendant of Moses, whose name was now changed to Jehoshua or Joshua (God the Saviour), a title which well became the future leader of the Israelitish hosts. It was now the time of the first ripe grapes (Num. xiii. 20), or the month of September[113]. Setting out from the wilderness of Paran, the spies traversed the land as far north as Rehob on the way to Hamath, in the valley of the Orontes, which divides the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Then they ascended by the south[114], and came to Hebron, where dwelt Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the gigantic sons of Anak. In a valley opening on this city, celebrated even now for its vineyards, they plucked pomegranates, and figs, and a bunch with one cluster of grapes of such enormous size that it required to be carried on a staff between two men, whence the valley was named Eshcol, or the Valley of the Cluster. With these proofs of the fertility of the land, after an absence of forty days, the spies returned and presented themselves in the camp at Kadesh before the host assembled to hear their report.
The productiveness of the promised land, they said, was sufficiently attested by the fruits they had brought back. It was, indeed, a good land, and flowed with milk and honey. But the people, it could not be denied, were strong, and of great stature, and among them were the sons of Anak, before whom they themselves appeared as grasshoppers (Num. xiii. 33). They were proceeding to enumerate the chief tribes whom they had encountered, when Caleb, the Kenezite, of the tribeof Judah, one of their number, anxious to dispel the feelings of despondency with which their report was received, broke in with the advice that the people should make an immediate attack, and promised them speedy and certain success. But, save the valiant Joshua, he found no other to support his brave counsels; the rest of the spies dwelt only on the dangers of the expedition, and their despondency found but too faithful an echo in the hearts of the people, who burst forth into lamentation, openly murmured against Moses and Aaron for having brought them thither, and even proposed to appoint a captain to lead them back into Egypt. In vain Joshua and Caleb tried to calm the tumult, and to check the mutiny. The host would listen to nothing, and even threatened to stone them to death. But at this moment the Glory of Jehovah appeared before the Tabernacle in the sight of the whole people. Terrible though most just was His wrath at this signal proof of faithlessness, in spite of all the signs and wonders He had wrought in their midst. He threatened to destroy them utterly with pestilence, and make of Moses a nation greater and mightier than they. But, as before on Sinai, so now that unselfish leader stood heroically in the gap. He pleaded earnestly with the justly offended Jehovah; he represented the joy the rejection of the people would cause to the Egyptians and the nations of Canaan, who had all heard of the mighty Hand and the stretched out Arm, which had guided them through the wilderness. Finally, he appealed to the Name which the Lord Himself had proclaimed on the top of Sinai[115], the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, and implored the forgiveness of the people (Num. xiv. 11–19).
His prayer was heard. The Almighty assured him that the nation, as a nation, should be preserved, theirname should not be utterly blotted out. But, save Joshua and Caleb, not one of that generation, which in spite of the wonders they had seen in Egypt and in the wilderness had refused to trust in God, should enter into the promised Land. For them, all hope of entry was cut off; every one, from twenty years old and upwards, should die; their carcases should lie bleaching in the wilderness (1 Cor. x. 5), while their children, whom they had deemed a certain prey to the Canaanites, should atone for their faithlessness by wandering forty years, a year for each day the spies had been engaged in searching out the land (Num. xiv. 33, 34). As an earnest of this judgment, the ten spies, who by their faithless despondency had been the primary cause of the mutiny, were struck with instant death, and the command was given to the rest of the host to return into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. This announcement was received by the people with universal lamentation, and on the morrow they rose up, and in spite of the earnest exhortations of Moses (Deut. i. 42, 43), and the ominous circumstance that the Cloud had not removed from the Tabernacle, made a wild rush up the steep and difficult pass, probably es-Sufah, leading into the uplands of Southern Palestine, where they encountered the Amorites (Deut. i. 44), the highlanders of the mountains, and their old enemies the Amalekites (Num. xiv. 45), by whom they were driven back, routed and discomfited as far as Hormah (Num. xiv. 20–45).
CHAPTER II.
THE WANDERINGS. DEATH OF MIRIAM AND AARON.
Numb. xv.–xxi. B.C. 1490–1451.
AFTER this signal defeat it was clear that the sentence pronounced upon the existing generation wasirrevocable, and the host remained for a considerable time at Kadesh (Deut. i. 46). During this period a formidable conspiracy broke out against the authority of Moses and Aaron. In their natural state of mortification at recent events, the people were now more than ever likely to lend a ready ear to those who whispered that under the auspices of any other than their present leaders, they might escape from their humiliating doom, and reach the goal of their hopes. Such fatal advisers soon appeared in the persons of Korah, a Kohathite, of the tribe of Levi, and Dathan, Abiram, and On, of the tribe of Reuben. The former, jealous probably of the sacerdotal pre-eminence of the line of Amram, and the latter loth to see their tribe deprived of their ancestor’s right of primogeniture, conspired, it is thought, “to place Korah at the head of a priesthood chosen by popular election, and possibly to restore the tribe of Reuben to the rights of the firstborn, of which it had been deprived[116].”
Successful in gaining over to their views 250 princes of the people, they rose up against Moses and Aaron, and publicly charged them with taking too much upon themselves, and usurping functions which ought to have been shared by the congregation at large, who were all, every one of them, holy unto the Lord. On hearing these charges Moses resolved to refer the matter to the Divine decision, and bade Korah and his company assemble on the morrow with lighted censers before the Tabernacle. A similar summons was addressed to the Reubenite leaders, but they flatly refused to attend at the place of meeting, and charged Moses with having disappointed the hopes of the people, and being anxious only to make himself a prince over them. Curiosity, however, induced them to stand at the doors of theirtents in full view of the Tabernacle, where Korah and his associates stood with lighted censers awaiting the Divine decision (Num. xvi. 1–16).
Before long the Glory of the Lord appeared, and Moses was instructed to command that a clear space should be kept round the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and that the people should be careful to touch nothing belonging to them, lest they should be consumed in their sin. Then the servant of Jehovah offered to submit his claims to an awful and infallible test. If the ringleaders in this rebellion died the common death of all men, or were visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord had not sent him; but if a new and terrible fate befell them, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, then it would be known that they had provoked the Lord. His words had hardly been uttered, when this awful catastrophe took place. The earth clave asunder, and swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with everything belonging to them, and at the same time a fire burst forth and consumed the 250 men, who had presumed to offer incense at the Sanctuary. Thus this great conspiracy was signally punished, and as a memorial of the occurrence, Eleazar the son of Aaron was directed to take the brazen censers of the offenders, and therewith to make plates for the altar of burnt-sacrifice.