Israel’s Final Days In The Wilderness

Posted by Lorren on July 25, 2008

I was reading about the Israelites in the wilderness, and it was pretty interesting. I really like my new Life Application Bible, it’s got some great maps and notes.

I always thought that it was unfair that Moses didn’t get to go into the promised land; that God wouldn’t let him go because he hit a rock instead of speaking to it. What’s the big deal? Maybe Moses hit the rock out of anger… I guess that’s not a good thing. But I noticed something else today. He said “Must we bring water out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10) Like he was taking some of the credit for God was doing. The Bible says that he wasn’t allowed to go into the promised land because he hit the rock, but perhaps trying to take some of the credit for what God was doing had something to do with it too. At any rate, it certainly wasn’t Moses’s finest moment.

I think that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and any other nation that wants to destroy Israel should read Numbers Chapter 21. Israel was trying to get to the promised land, and Edom tells them that they can’t walk through their country. Edom happens to be Esau’s descendents, so they decide to go around. They then try to cross the Arnon river up into the territory of the Amorites, and their king tells them that they can’t cross. Perhaps they thought of the Israelites as a bunch of pests that couldn’t do them harm. After all, they had Chemosh, their god of war, to protect them. The Israelites had God on their side though, and rather than go around the land of the Amorites, God sends the Israelites in and they destroy them instead. Woops.

North of the Amorites was the territory of Bashan. King Og over there sees them fighting his neighbors, and he decides to send some soldiers out to fight them. Bad move… God allows the Israelites to take them out too. They probably could have saved themselves if they had just offered to let the Israelites pass through peacefully, but perhaps they saw them wipe out the Amorites and were afraid of what might happen to them if they didn’t act right away.

At some point, it’s likely that Iran will try to make good on their promise to try to wipe out the Israelites, but that’s not going to happen. I’m sure that the Amorites and King Bashan thought that a bunch of desert wanderers would be an easy target as well.