Behold, Jehovah thy God hath set the land before thee go up, take possession, as Jehovah the God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.
On the edge of Canaan, Moses reminds a new generation of what their parents were told. The land was already theirs; the orders were to go up and not be afraid. Israel did not obey. So what did God ask of them here, and what was missing?
Moses does not tell them to earn a country. He tells them to step into one God has already handed over.
Here was their authority for taking the land at once. The Lord their God had given them the land, and set it before them. It was theirs by His free gift, the gift of His sovereign grace, in keeping with the covenant made with their fathers. It was His eternal purpose to possess the land of Canaan through the descendants of Abraham, His friend. This should have been enough to set their hearts fully at rest — both about what kind of land it was and about their entry into it. There was no need of spies. Faith never wants to spy what God has given. It argues that what He has given must be worth having. It argues that He is able to put us in full possession of all that His grace has given.
The verse ends with two commands against fear. What answers fear is the direction faith looks.
This is how faith would have reasoned. Faith always reasons from God down to circumstances, never from circumstances up to God. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" This is faith's argument, grand in its simplicity, and simple in its moral grandeur. When God fills the whole range of the soul's sight, difficulties count for little. Either the soul does not see them, or it sees them as occasions for the display of divine power.
That same "Do not fear" runs through Israel's whole story. God gives it again whenever His people face an enemy.
This word meets the ears of the people of God every time they have to do with the enemy, whether in Egypt (Ex. 14:13) or in the wilderness (Num. 14:9; Deut. 3:22; Deut. 31:6), or in Canaan under Joshua... And when Israel lay in the "lowest pit" and cried to God in their distress, the Lord answered, "Do not fear" (Lam. 3:57).
Numbers 13 opens with God telling Moses to send men to search the land. Read alone, it looks as though the whole mission was His idea. This verse supplies what Numbers leaves out.
We may ask: if searching the land was not an act of faith, why did God say, "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan"? ... Deuteronomy 1:21 gives the answer. There we find the word of the LORD God: "Go up, take possession" — not spy it out. The people say they will send men to spy out the land. That is disobedience. Their proposal pleases Moses. Was it faith that made him pleased?
The request for spies looked practical. Moses points to what lay under it.
We would not have discovered this from the book of Numbers. What we have here is not a repetition. It leads us into hidden things — what was at work in the people and held back their blessing. The main point to notice is that the people had no spirit of obedience. They lacked it because they had no faith in God.
Commentators differ on where the fault lies. Some point to the wish for spies itself. Others point to the unbelief behind it. Both trace the outcome back to the heart.
God commands many things, and we are bound to do them as soon as He commands them. His ways are displayed in how they turn out. Yet these things are only owing to our lack of faith. The result fully confirms the faith of the faithful, of the remnant; but unbelief reaps what it has sown.
The picture is not left in the past. The land set before Israel has its counterpart for believers now.
God has opened to us as well the land of our inheritance, and told us to enjoy our portion by faith. The Spirit of God has come to take the things of Christ and show them to us, and to make known to us the things God has freely given us. But how little we have laid hold of!
- Given — the land was theirs by God's free gift before they took a single step. The command to take it rests on a gift already made.
- Enough — a gift from God needs no checking; faith never wants to spy out what God has given.
- Fearless — faith reasons from God down to circumstances, never the other way. Difficulties then become occasions for His power.
- Exposed — the order was "Go up, take possession," not spy it out. Deuteronomy reveals what Numbers 13 leaves hidden: no obedience, because no faith.
- Ours — the Spirit sets our own inheritance before us in the things of Christ, and it waits for us to lay hold of it.
And ye came near to me all of you, and said, We will send men before us, who shall examine the land for us, and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up, and of the cities to which we shall come.
Israel stands at the edge of the promised land, told to go up and take it. Instead the whole nation asks Moses to send men ahead first — the very mission Numbers 13 records as God's own command.
Numbers records what happened. Deuteronomy shows what was going on underneath.
Then comes the account of the inner motives for the sending of the spies. This is worth noting, since we would not have discovered it from the book of Numbers. What we have here is not a repetition. It leads us into the secret things — what was working in the people and hindering their blessing. The chief point to observe is this: there was no spirit of obedience in the people. They lacked it because there was no faith in God.
Numbers 13 opens with the Lord telling Moses to send men. Here Moses says the people came to him. Three wills appear in the one event, in order.
Moses reminded them that it was they themselves who pushed for sending the spies to search out the land. This appears to clash with Numbers 13:1-2, which says, "The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Send men to spy out the land of Canaan.'" The two passages show that the people proposed it. Moses consented — it pleased him well, he says here. And God commanded it. God's first message was, "Go up, take possession"; but the people hesitated and said they would send the spies. Their rebellion and their wanderings were the result.
That order matters when reading Numbers. A command from God is not proof that He approved.
We learn, most clearly, from Deuteronomy 1:22 that the idea of sending the spies had its origin in the heart of Israel. God saw their moral condition, and He issued a command that fully matched it.
The command Moses had just delivered contained no hint of a survey party. Everything the spies could report, God had already told them.
Had they been governed by simple faith, they would have acted on those stirring words of Moses: "See, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed." There is not one syllable about spies in this splendid passage. What does faith want with spies, when it has the word and the presence of the living God? If the LORD had given them a land, it must be worth having. … Had He not spied out the land for them, and told them all about it? And was that not enough? What need was there to send men to spy out the land?
Notice how the people phrase it. They never say they doubt whether to enter — only that they want to know the route and the first cities.
Here in Deuteronomy we learn that the people had appealed to Moses to send spies into the land first. They did not say they wanted this to find out whether it was safe for them to go in or not. They said instead that this way they could find out which route to take and which cities they would reach first. This suggestion pleased Moses well, he says.
They already had a guide who never failed.
The folly of unbelief was never more obvious. The Lord had guided His people by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Now they will trust the information the spies may bring about the way they should take. After such a long experience of the Lord's faithfulness, they think more of the wisdom of men than of His perfect knowledge. How often have we fallen into the same trap.
Moses reports his own reaction without excusing it. A leader agreeing with a faithless suggestion is part of the failure.
Deuteronomy 1:21 gives the answer. There we find the word of the LORD God, "Go up, take possession" — not search it. The people say they will send men to spy out the land. This is disobedience. Moses is pleased with their proposal. Was it faith to be pleased? Why listen to the people when God had said, "Go up, take possession"? It is at least weak to encourage others down a faithless path.
The reason runs deeper. God could not be the source of a plan that doubted His own word.
God had rested Israel on the faithfulness of His word and promise. How then could He have started something that was really a slur on His truthfulness and the certainty of His word? No; the LORD permitted it, but He never originated it.
- Motive — Deuteronomy shows the heart behind the act: no obedience, because there was no faith.
- Origin — the people proposed, Moses agreed, then God commanded. That order explains the account in Numbers 13.
- Permission — God's command was not God's approval. He allowed what He never originated.
- Disguise — the request sounded practical. It asked only about the route, yet it preferred the word of men to the pillar of cloud.
- Result — a sensible-sounding survey ended in rebellion and forty years of wandering.
And the matter was good in mine eyes; and I took twelve men of you, one man for a tribe.
Israel stood at the edge of the promised land, and the people asked Moses to send spies in first. The verse sounds like a small administrative note, but it tells us what a leader felt about a plan God had never made.
True, in the history given in Numbers, the Lord told Moses to send the spies. But why? Because of the moral condition of the people. Here we see the characteristic difference and yet the lovely harmony of the two books. Numbers gives us the public history. Deuteronomy gives us the secret source behind sending the spies... We could not fully understand the subject if we had only the history given in Numbers. It is the touching commentary given in Deuteronomy which completes the picture.
What the second account exposes is not a new fact but a motive.
Then comes the account of the inner motives for the sending of the spies. This is well to note, as we would not have discovered it from the book of Numbers. This is not a repeat of the story. It leads us into things that were secret — what was working in the people and holding back their blessing. The main point to notice is that the people had no spirit of obedience. They lacked it because they had no faith in God.
If God told Moses to send them, how could sending them be wrong? Commentators answer by separating the act from the wish behind it.
The wrong was not in the act of sending them when they were told, but in the wish to send them at all. The wish was the fruit of unbelief; and the command to send them was because of that unbelief.
A command given on those terms still has to be obeyed. What comes out of it then tells its own story.
God commands many things, and we are bound to do them as soon as He commands them. His ways are displayed in how they turn out. Yet the only reason for them is our lack of faith. So the outcome gives full confirmation to the faith of the faithful, the faith of the remnant. But unbelief reaps what it has sown.
Moses had just passed on God's word to go up and take the land. Then he found himself pleased with a plan to inspect it first.
Deuteronomy 1:21 gives the answer. There we find the word of the Lord God: "Go up, take possession" — not search it. The people say they will send men to spy out the land. This is disobedience. Moses is pleased with their proposal. Was it faith to be pleased? Why listen to the people when God had said, "Go up and take possession"? It is at least weak to encourage others in a faithless path. Still, God heard their words and tested the people. Now He gives the command, "Send men."
The same writer notes how ordinary this failure is: saints "overlook the path of faith and give way to circumstances, even to being pleased with what is not according to the word of God."
The search took forty days. It settled nothing that God's word had not already settled.
But look — they search the land for forty days, only to prove that God's word about it is true. It was really unbelief that sent out these spies. Do I need to search and see whether God is true? Certainly not. Have I any reason to doubt Him? Not at all.
Commentators point out what unbelief then did with the difficulties it found.
At first the report brought to Moses is in a right spirit. But the difficulties show up at once, and unbelief measures them by man instead of by God.
The lasting warning is about a habit: investigating instead of obeying.
The Lord sanctioned it, but it was still the working of unbelief. Instead of going on in simple faith, how often we raise a cloud of questions to get a human estimate of a thing. In the end we only find that the walls are up to heaven. Instead of doing the thing that has to be done, we look at every question and difficulty anyone can raise. And so it ended in their not going into the land at all.
- Motive. Numbers tells us the spies were sent. Deuteronomy tells us why — the plan came from the people's own hearts, not from God's word.
- Root. What they lacked was not information but obedience. They lacked obedience because they had no faith.
- Permission. God's command to send them came because of the unbelief; a granted wish is no proof the wish was right.
- Pleasure. Moses was pleased with a plan that set aside God's word, "Go up, take possession." To encourage others down a faithless path is itself weakness.
- Result. Forty days of searching only confirmed what God had already said. Raising questions instead of taking steps ended with Israel never entering the land.