Yet they presumed to go up to the hill-top; but the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and Moses, did not depart from the midst of the camp.
Israel had refused to enter the land, and God had sentenced them to forty years in the wilderness. Now they charge up the hill anyway, without the ark and without Moses — is that faith, or rebellion in a bolder form?
This charge up the hill is the twin of the refusal before it. One nature produced both.
If God is not with us, we are like the morning mist. But this has to be learnt in practice. We must be brought right down to the bottom of all that is in self, so as to prove its complete worthlessness. It is the wilderness, with all its varied scenes and its countless trials, that leads to this practical result. There we learn what flesh is. There our nature comes right out in all its forms. Sometimes it is full of cowardly unbelief. At other times it is full of false confidence. At Kadesh, refusing to go up when told to go; at Hormah, insisting on going when told not to.
The people did admit their sin. What they would not accept was the consequence God attached to it. One writer calls that presumption.
We allow that we have sinned, but we want to carry on as though we had not. This is not obedience but presumption. We do not undo wrong by doing what seems right to us. We undo it by justifying God in confession and taking the place He assigns us.
The same writer warns how well this sin can hide itself.
Israel presumed on the promise of the Lord and on their own confession of sins. At the same time they "rebelled against the command of the LORD." Presumptuous sin appears to be above all the danger of God's own recognised people. It is doing what makes for our own credit, instead of what is for the honour of Christ. There may even be an apparent confession of sin. There may be bold action in pleading the promise of God, with an outward show of humility and dignity. And yet God is not acknowledged at all.
The ark is the hinge of the verse. Each side left the other.
But the people presumed. They pretended to be something when they were nothing. And oh, how miserable to presume to move in our own strength! What defeat and confusion! What exposure and contempt! What humbling and shattering! It must be so. They abandoned God in their unbelief, and He abandoned them in their empty presumption. They would not go with Him in faith, and He would not go with them in their unbelief. Yet "neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed out of the camp." They went without God, and so they fled before their enemies.
Moses answers them with the very enemies they had used as their excuse. Without God, the fight was down to their size.
Here lay the great secret. The Lord's pleasure with His people secures victory over every foe. But if He is not with them, they are like water poured on the ground. The ten unbelieving spies had said they were grasshoppers next to the giants. Moses takes them at their word. He tells them, in effect, that grasshoppers are no match for giants. It is true that "according to your faith be it done to you." It is just as true that according to your unbelief, so be it to you.
The name of the place where the rout ended carries its own verdict.
They presume to go up to the top of the hill. But the Amalekites and Canaanites come down on them and chase them as far as Hormah, the "place of ban." The name points to the sentence that lay upon them.
The answer to presumption is not more courage. It is dependence: moving when God moves.
It might seem hard to stay month after month, and year after year, in the same place. Their progress might look slow. Their own energy might urge them to press forward. But until God gave His express approval, "they rested in their tents." Man might mock their inaction and call it foolishness... The Lord led them into the land in His own time and in His own way. But on one occasion "they presumed to go up to the heights" in their own strength and without the Lord. Then the Amalekites and Canaanites came down, defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hormah.
- Unbelief — Kadesh and Hormah came from one nature: too afraid to go, then too sure of itself.
- Presumption — admitting sin but refusing its consequence is not repentance. It is rebellion in a new form.
- Absence — the ark and Moses stayed in the camp; they went without God, and so they fled before their enemies.
- Proportion — faith makes the battle God's. Unbelief leaves grasshoppers facing giants, and gets what it believed for.
- Hormah — the name means "place of ban," so the defeat stamped on the ground the sentence they had refused to accept.
And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt on that hill, came down and smote them, and cut them to pieces, as far as Hormah.
Israel had just been told that the generation who refused Canaan would die in the wilderness. They marched up the hill anyway, and this verse records what met them there.
The refusal at Kadesh and the charge at Hormah look like opposites. Commentators trace both to one root.
We must be brought right down to the bottom of all that is in self, so as to prove how worthless it is. And it is the wilderness, with all its different scenes and its countless trials, that leads to this result. There we learn what flesh is. There nature comes fully out in all its forms. Sometimes it is full of cowardly unbelief, at other times full of false confidence. At Kadesh, refusing to go up when told to go; at Hormah, insisting on going when told not to.
Unbelief had already changed the shape of the war.
They, by their unbelief, had shut God out; and so it was obviously a question between Israel and the Canaanites. Faith would have made it a question between God and the Canaanites. Joshua and Caleb saw the matter this way. They said, "If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. The Lord is with us; do not fear them."
The previous verse notes that the ark and Moses never left the camp. That detail explains the defeat in this one.
But the people presumed. They pretended to be something when they were nothing. And how miserable it is to presume to move in our own strength! What defeat and confusion! They abandoned God in their unbelief, and He abandoned them in their empty presumption. They would not go with Him in faith, and He would not go with them in their unbelief. "Yet the ark of the covenant of the Lord and Moses did not depart out of the camp." They went without God, and so they fled before their enemies.
They had admitted their sin and quoted God's promise back to Him. One writer calls this the special danger of God's own people.
Israel presumed on the promise of the Lord and on their own confession of sins, and at the same time rebelled against the commandment of the Lord. Presumptuous sin appears to be especially the danger of God's own recognised people. It is doing what makes for our own credit, rather than what is for the honour of Christ. There may be nothing in it that the natural conscience can detect as wrong. There may even be an apparent confession of sin. There may be boldness in pleading the promise of God, with humility and dignity on the outside — and yet God not acknowledged at all.
The place where the rout ended carried its own verdict.
Hormah is the name, meaning "utter destruction", given to Zephath in the far south when Judah and Simeon conquered it.
The same name appears twice in Numbers, with the losing side reversed each time.
Notice that there are two Hormahs in the book of Numbers. Both involve the Canaanites. In the first case the Israelites went against them on their own initiative. So the Hormah of Numbers 14:45 refers to their own bitter disappointment and defeat. In the second case they first placed themselves in the Lord's hands, and He sent them. So the Hormah of Numbers 21:3 was the defeat of the enemy.
Moses had warned them, and they went anyway.
They acted on their own proud presumption that they could win despite Moses' warning. This one decisive defeat was enough. Israel tried no other invasion until God ordered it after forty long years in the wilderness.
Retreat was the one thing they would not accept.
They could not bear to lose so much ground and to cross the wilderness again. They would go up from where they were, but it could not succeed; it was not the Lord's way, and He was not with them. The Lord will have us back at the cross, so that we may start again with Him. We must learn that, after all our progress, we are nothing better than sinners saved by grace. We allow that we have sinned, but we want to go on as if we had not. That is not obedience but presumption.
- Self-will — the refusal at Kadesh and the charge at Hormah came from one nature: unbelief one day, false confidence the next.
- Without Him — faith would have made the fight God's quarrel with Canaan. Unbelief left it as Israel against Canaan, and the ark stayed in the camp.
- Words — they confessed sin and quoted God's promise, then disobeyed His command. That is presumption dressed as repentance.
- Hormah — the name means utter destruction. In Numbers 21 it marks the enemy's defeat instead, because there Israel went only when God sent them.
- Back — one defeat closed the door for forty years. The way on was the way back: bowing to God's discipline instead of holding the ground we chose.