What were the ten times that Israel refused to trust and obey (Numbers 14:22)?

The words of unbelief of the ten spies yielded an awful harvest among the people. The camp was transformed into a camp of despair, weeping and crying during the night. Outspoken rebellion against Moses and Aaron was heard on all sides. Worse than that took place; they accused Jehovah of deception. Such is unbelief. They are ready to select a captain and march back to Egypt . Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb stand alone among the hundreds of thousands of murmuring, rebellious Israelites and the mixed multitude. They fell on their faces, no doubt in the attitude of prayer and worship, to tell the Lord. They tried to stem the swelling tide of rebellion. Read the supplementary words in Deut. 1:29-3 1. "Jehovah is with us!" This was the word of cheer and comfort. Their answer was the stones with which they were ready to stone the servants of the Lord. Unbelief had robbed them of all reason, blinded their eyes and rushed them into despair and prompted them to become murderers. Beautiful is the scene of Moses' intercession. He stands out as a striking type of our great Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jehovah's offer to Moses to make a new start after destroying the rebels and to make Moses a greater nation, even than Israel , is rejected. He does not want glory for himself, but he is jealous for Jehovah's name and glory. And in the intercession he reminds Jehovah of His own words He had spoken to him when on the mountain (Exod. 34:5-9). And upon this magnificent intercession Jehovah said, "I have pardoned according to thy word." Another, our ever blessed Lord, has secured forgiveness for His shining people. Grace now reigns through righteousness. Connected with this forgiveness is the divine declaration that the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. The grace which has secured pardon will yet establish glory on this earth. In spite of Israel 's failure and the failure of man in this dispensation of grace, glory must ultimately cover this earth. This will be in the day when our Lord is revealed in all His glory. The measure of Israel 's sin is full. They had tempted the Lord ten times (Exod. 14:11-12; 15:23-24; 16:2; 16:20; 16:27; 17:1-3; 22; Num. 11:1; 11:4; 14:2). The divine sentence is pronounced. "Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered among you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me." Only Caleb and Joshua are an exception. Up to now they had been pilgrims, but now they became wanderers (verse 33). The ten spies were carried away by the plague. Their unbelief resulted in the disaster which came upon all the people as they were the first witnesses of the divine displeasure. "They could not enter in because of unbelief' (Heb. 3:19). And Christendom in its failure to lay hold in faith of the heavenly calling and heavenly possession, has lost its pilgrim character and has become the wanderer, minding earthly things. Another failure follows. The divine sentence pronounced upon them resulted in mourning and a lip-confession, we have sinned." True repentance and self-judgment there was not. They tried to make their error good in their own strength and they attempted to go up without the ark and without Moses. "Whereas at first they had refused to enter upon the conflict with the Canaanites through their unbelief in the might of the promise of God, now, through unbelief in the severity of the judgment of God, they resolved to engage in the conflict by their own power, and without the help of God, and to cancel the old sin of unbelieving despair through the new sin of presumptuous confidence" (Dr. F. Delitzsch). And Christendom, stripped of its power, tries to meet the giants of sin and wickedness in the same way, only to suffer defeat in all their attempts.

God had carefully noted the ways of His people, and said to Moses, “All those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice” (Num. 14:22). And having pronounced His sentence, “Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness,” He added, “But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised” (verses 29–31). These “little ones” are those of whom Jehovah speaks in Ezekiel 20:18, “But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols.”

Moses then speaks of other cases of Israel's rebellion, first at Taberah (Num.11:1-10), their complaining about their food; then at Massah (Ex.17:2-6), complaining about the lack of water; then at Kibroth Hattaavah (Num.11:32-34), when the Lord showed mercy in giving Israel quails and they responded by greedily devouring them without any recognition of His goodness (vs.22-23). Also, Moses reminded Israel of their rebellion against the Word of the Lord at Kadesh Barnea when they refused to go into the land (Num.14:1-10). All of this proved Israel to be unworthy of the blessing God was going to give them in the land. How could they possibly boast then that the prosperity given them was because of their righteousness? As Moses says, they had been rebellious against the Lord from the day he knew them (v.24).

Next the apostle shows us how the things that happened in their case are "types of us (ver. 6), that we should not be lusters after evil things, even as they also lusted." This is general; but those things are successively specified which were perilous to the Corinthians. "Neither be idolaters, even as some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." There was, in the first place, a yielding to fleshly gratification, then pleasurable excitement followed, which told the result one sees in the scripture cited — the judgment. Were not the Corinthians in danger? "Neither let us commit fornication, even as some of them committed fornication, and fell in one day twenty-three thousand." In the history (Num. 26), where twenty-four thousand are said to have died in the plague, it is not said "in one day," as here, where we hear of a thousand less. To me such a difference implies the greatest accuracy, nor have I named all the points of distinction which deserve the thoughtful reader's consideration, small as the matter may seem, and to some grave men only a question of general numbers on either side of the precise amount. "Neither let us tempt the Lord, even as some of them tempted, and were perishing by the serpents." To tempt was to doubt His presence and action on their behalf, as Israel, not only "ten times" (Num. 14), but also just before Jehovah sent fiery serpents to cut them off. "Neither murmur, even as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer." This, if it be not more general, seems to allude to the gainsaying of Korah and his company, which so excited the evil tongue in Israel.

In this respect the complaint that God uttered in Numbers 14:22 is particularly striking: they “have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice.” Time and again the grumbling people were punished by God but it all seemed to be of no avail. The people died a miserable death in the desert and therefore it was a new generation (with the exception of Joshua and Caleb) that entered the land of promise. Man in the flesh, who was tested by the law, could not please God and had to be born again. Every attentive reader of this Bible book must come to this conclusion and no doubt this is one of the important lessons that God wants to teach us here.

But then there is such a thing as government, as well as grace. This must never be forgotten; nor must these things ever be confounded. The whole book of God illustrates the distinction between grace and government; and no part of it, perhaps, more forcibly than the section which now lies open before us. Grace will pardon; and grace will fill the earth with the blessed beams of divine glory; but mark the appalling movement of the wheels of government as set forth in the following burning words: "Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went; and his seed shall possess it. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To-morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea." verses 22-25.

Then comes the final one, “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:10). This we find in Num. 14. The solemn moment came when “All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron.” “And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.” Here was the complete giving up of the Lord and His servants, and that at the moment when those faithful men “men of another spirit” were exhorting them to go up and possess the land. They despised the pleasant land, and propose to make a captain and return into the land of slavery once more; and they “were destroyed of the destroyer.”

Verses 18 and 19 expose to our view the root of this rebellion on the part of Israel: it was not mere passive lack of faith, but active unbelief. The testimony of God had been declared: they had heard it, and had seen pub­lic evidences of its trustworthiness; but through fear of present discomfort and opposition of the Canaanites, they chose to disbelieve God. He told them to enter the land: they refused: only unbelief kept them out.

With regard to the mission of the spies, the reader will note, with interest, the way in which Moses refers to it. He confines himself to that portion of their testimony which was according to truth. He says nothing about the ten infidel spies. This is in perfect keeping with the scope and object of the book. Everything is brought to bear, in a moral way, on the conscience of the congregation. He reminds them that they themselves had proposed to send the spies; and yet, although the spies had placed before them the fruit of the land, and borne testimony to its goodness, they would not go up. "Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God." There was no excuse whatever. It was evident that their hearts were in a state of positive unbelief and rebellion, and the mission of the spies, from first to last, only made this fully manifest.

"Nevertheless," Moses says, "you would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord" (v.26). Instead of being inspired with courage to go forward, they complained against the Lord because the spies told them that the inhabitants of the land were greater and taller than the Israelites (vs.27-28). Why then did they refuse to believe His word in regard to His promise to put down their enemies? Their fear and apprehension defeated them before they took one step forward. Do we not also defeat ourselves by our fears of what might happen, even when we have the Lord's word for acting?