What is the significance of Kadesh Barnea in the Bible?

“It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea” (Deut. 1:2). A few days would suffice to reach the frontier of Canaan. Yet, more than thirty eight years after the departure from Sinai we meet the people at Kadesh-barnea again (Num. 20:1). So today, the spiritual progress of a soul can be rapid, but often many years are wasted through lack of faith, vigilance, and love for the Lord.

This is just what happened with the people of Israel. As the starting point for the conquest, Kadesh-Barnea was situated at the frontier of Canaan. Moses mentions it in Deuteronomy one. After the “great and terrible wilderness” which they had crossed, the lsraelites had only to move forward fearlessly and take possession of Palestine. As Moses said, “You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged” (Deut. 1:20-21). In these words one can sense all the relief felt by Moses. He had brought the people through the different stages of the wilderness up to the frontier of Canaan. Just a few more efforts, and through God's kindness he would soon be able to lay down his heavy burden and enjoy rest.

Moses only briefly mentions the journey of Israel from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea, though he speaks of the wilderness as "great and terrible" (v.19). The experience in such a desert ought to have given them a strong incentive to enter the promised land as soon as they could.

At Kadesh Barnea Moses addressed them again, telling them they had come to the mountains of the Amorites and it was time to carry out what the Lord had spoken, to take possession of the land of promise (vs.20-21).

The fact is stated that from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir, unto Kadesh-barnea on the south border of the land, was only an eleven days' journey, yet it had occupied them, going backwards and forwards, nearly forty years. Moses then reminded them of the burden and strife which fell on him consequent on their being so great a people, and of the system of government that had been appointed among them; also that it was themselves who were the instigators of sending the spies to search out the land. This appears to clash with Num. 13:1-2, which says "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men that they may search 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 and possess it;" but the people hesitated, and said they would send the spies. Deut. 1:21-23. Their rebellion and their wanderings were the result.

Verse 2 tells that from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea is eleven days' journey. It was when Israel was in Kadesh Barnea that God told them to enter the land of Canaan and Israel refused (Num.13:26). Thus this Scripture emphasizes that if Israel had been obedient to the Lord they might have entered the land only 11 days after leaving Mount Horeb, but because of disobedience the time was lengthened to about 40 years. Moses spoke to them here just one month before the forty years was complete (v.3). This tells believers today that our wilderness history does not necessarily have to be long, but because of our natural selfish propensities it is necessary for God to put us through the trial of hard circumstances in order to learn that obedience is the only way of blessing.

We shall now proceed with our chapter and, in so doing we would call the reader's attention to verse 2. It is certainly a very remarkable parenthesis. "There are eleven days' journey from Horeb, by the way of mount Seir, to Kadesh-barnea." Eleven days! And yet it took them forty years! How was this? Alas! we need not travel far for the answer. It is only too like ourselves. How slowly we get over the ground! What windings and turnings! How often we have to go back and travel over the same ground again and again. We are slow travellers, because we are slow learners. It may be we feel disposed to marvel how Israel could have taken forty years to accomplish a journey of eleven days; but we may, with much greater reason, marvel at ourselves. We, like them, are kept back by our unbelief and slowness of heart; but there is far less excuse for us than for them, inasmuch as our privileges are so very much higher.

Retrospect and exhortation to obedience. Israel had taken forty years for their journey. The object of the statement, "There are eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea" is evident. It is a silent comment upon the tortuous path we make for ourselves. Unquestionably, other thoughts are present also. In his retrospect, Moses fittingly begins with Horeb where the people had put themselves under a legal covenant, which we may say accounts for the character of much of their subsequent journey. He recalls how, at his earnest request, judges had been granted to them to lighten the burden for himself and thus reach more intimately the needs of the people.

The great refusal at Kadesh-barnea is next recorded, with its consequences. Deut. 2 recounts the wanderings in the desert and the passing by Edom, Moab and Ammon which were to be spared, while the territories of Sihon and of Og were to be taken. Thus, the eastern territory had been subdued. Most touchingly does Moses entreat, that having had a foretaste of the glorious victories to come, he might be permitted to enter the land. How solemnly God reminds him of the inflexible nature of His chastening: "Speak no more unto Me of this matter."

Already during the second year the people could have undertaken the conquest of Canaan, had they not lacked faith at Kadesh-barnea after receiving the report of the spies. In this sense, the additional thirty-eight years spent in the wilderness were not necessary at all; but Israel had to learn to know itself and to know God (Deut. 8).

In Deuteronomy 2:14-15 we read: “And the time we took to come from Kadesh-Barnea … was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp.” A choice had been made at Kadesh by these men; they did not have the faith to go up and conquer the land of Canaan, as Caleb and Joshua had urged them to do. Frightened by the enemy, they had renounced God's desire for them to possess it.

We now come to the decisive point in the history of the wilderness, the refusal of the people to enter the land, when brought to its very borders, by which they incur the penalty of forty years of wandering, and the death of the whole generation (except two persons) in the wilderness. For these, therefore, the whole character of their life is altered. They are not pilgrims any more, but wanderers; if not aimlessly, yet their aim mere self-preservation for these forty years, so much so that the record of them is not given to us: we have only a few incidents carefully chosen, and which reveal a condition of things conformable to this beginning. Progress stopped does not stop declension, which ripens on the contrary into that rebellion of Korah and his company, which is the crowning sin of all. Of this period it is that God marks the character in Amos afterward in the inquiry, "Have ye offered unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chinn your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves." (Amos 5:25-26.) Circumcision likewise ceases, as we see by the renewal of it when they enter Canaan. (Joshua 5:2-6.) Thus the very sign of their covenant with Jehovah is lost, and grace alone carries them at last through Jordan, and gives them possession of the land from which they turn back here.

God's people are redeemed; but He must still show His holiness in His dealings with them; and of this, Kadesh-barnea, the "sanctuary of the wanderer," may now well remind us. God had His place of refuge for His people in the wilderness, but it was a "sanctuary," a holy refuge, and they for their sins were "wanderers." In making it a city of Israel He bade them take home both the grace and the holiness of this to their hearts.