Numbers 13:26: Forty days out and back, and the fruit of the land set down at the camp in Kadesh
Read it →Commentary on Numbers 13:26
Forty days of searching end here. The twelve men walk back into the camp at Kadesh with fruit in their hands. They report to Moses and Aaron, and to the whole assembly with them. Everything God had said about the land now has twelve eyewitnesses and a sample anyone could taste. The question is no longer whether the land is good. It is what the people will do with the proof.
Why the search happened at all
The book of Numbers tells the story as if the plan came from God alone. One writer shows why that is not the whole story.
The commission of the spies and its fulfillment come first. We would not know it from the account before us. But in Deuteronomy we find that this spying out of the land started with the people, and not with God. We need not wonder, then, that it ends in disaster. Yet God sanctions it. How much may He have to sanction in this way, because of what we are! And how much trial does our unbelief make necessary for us! He had told them all they needed to know of the goodness of the land. He had assured them that He was giving it to them, and that He would drive out the present inhabitants because of their sins. What more did they need to know?
What the returning men proved
The twelve gave their report in front of the whole camp. They had walked the country themselves, and the fruit they carried agreed with them.
Here, then, was the fullest confirmation of everything the Lord had said about the land. Twelve men testified that the land flowed with milk and honey. The people's own senses testified to the character of the fruit. Further, there was the telling fact that twelve men had been in the land. They had spent forty days travelling up and down in it. They had drunk from its springs and eaten its fruit. And what, according to the judgement of faith, would have been the plain conclusion to draw from such a fact? Simply that the same hand which had brought twelve men into the land could bring in the whole congregation.
The fruit as a sample, not just a story
They brought back two things: a word, and something to taste. One writer draws out how unusual the second was.
The report of Canaan had reached them through Moses long before this. The spies also bring a report of it. They said that it was surely a good land, flowing with milk and honey. But they did more. Moses, who had redeemed them out of Egypt, had never done this. They presented a cluster of grapes and said, this is the fruit of it. They offered a sample, a first-fruits. This was a new thing... God gives an earnest as well as a report... He does so in this age of ours by the gospel and by His Spirit living in us. The Spirit gives the soul enjoyment of the things reported in the word, like a sample or foretaste.
So who brings that sample to us now?
The Spirit of God Himself lives in us as a present witness. He takes of the glory of the Lord Jesus, and of the things of the land of promise — that true Canaan, of which faith says, my land — and so shows us our portion.
Evidence in the hand, unbelief in the heart
Proof and confidence are not the same thing. Watch what the camp does with the evidence in front of it.
They looked at the difficulties, and then everything was bad, though they had the grapes on their shoulders. Further, the whole congregation lifted up their voice and cried. In the end they turned back toward Egypt. It was now a positive giving up of the whole thing.
Where the road went from Kadesh
This verse is not the last time Kadesh appears in the story.
In the third stage the Lord makes them wander for thirty-eight years in the wilderness. When you come to the twentieth chapter, you find they are back again at Kadesh. If you trace their journeys, you will find only aimless wandering up and down the peninsula of Arabia. They went from Kadesh to Kadesh, and made no real progress. What a picture of many a saint now, who has rebelled against God and never really got on in his soul.
Summary
- Origin. The people asked for the search; God did not command it. He allowed it, and it exposed their hearts.
- Report. Twelve eyewitnesses told the whole camp that God's word about the land was exact.
- Sample. They brought more than words: a taste of the fruit. God gives a foretaste along with His promise.
- Doubt. The grapes were on their shoulders, but their eyes were on the difficulties. Proof does not create faith.
- Result. Kadesh became a place to return to, not a door to go through. Thirty-eight years of movement, no progress.
