Moses and his family started well in their journey to the Promised Land, but none of them got there. Why? For two reasons:

  1. God’s conditions for prophets
  2. Their disobedience to God’s conditions

God’s Conditions For Prophets

Anyone who has studied the Old Testament prophets in some depth will tell you that being a prophet of God was not easy. It wasn’t supposed to be easy because they represented the Almighty God. They ‘spoke’ His Words to Israel and other nations. Representing the God who created the universe and all that is in it is the highest responsibility I can imagine. Thus, God’s conditions for prophets were extremely high.

Moses

Let’s start with conditions for Moses. God introduced Himself to Moses from a burning bush that didn’t burn up. He told Moses the purpose of His calling him to represent Him to His people –

Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Exodus 3:10

God wanted Moses to ‘bring’ His people, the children of Israel, ‘out of Egypt.’ What next? God told Moses that he would ‘deliver’ the Israelites from the ‘hand of the Egyptians’ and bring them up from that land ‘to a good and large land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites’ (Exodus 3:7-9). Basically, God wanted Moses to take the children of Israel back to the same land that God had promised to Abraham. The Israelites had been in Egypt for many years and it was time for them to go home.

Things didn’t turn out quite like Moses thought they would. The ‘children of Israel’ eventually followed Moses out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and into the wilderness headed for the ‘land flowing with milk and honey.’ If you look at a map of the area between Egypt and ancient Canaan, you’ll notice it’s not a long distance – less than 500 miles. A camel caravan could make the trip in about a month, but it took the children of Israel 40 years. Why so long? More about that in a few minutes.

Moses had a very special relationship with God. Here’s how God explained it –

Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the Lord. Numbers 12:6-8

So, given that ‘very special’ relationship with God, why didn’t God allow Moses to go into the ‘promised land’ with the children of Israel? ‘… because you trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, because you did not hallow Me in the midst of the children of Israel’ (Deuteronomy 32:51). That’s the high standards and ‘conditions’ of being a prophet. [You can read more about what Moses did wrong in Numbers 20.]

God told Moses to go to ‘Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho,’ so he could ‘view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession.’ Moses did as God commanded. He went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. God showed Moses ‘all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the South, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.’ (Deuteronomy 34:1-4)

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day. Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended. Deuteronomy 34:5-8

God buried Moses Himself. How special is that! Keep in mind that the ‘children of Israel’ who wept for Moses were not the same Israelites who left Egypt 40 years earlier. They were the children of those people. Their parents died during the 40 years of ‘wandering’ in the wilderness. The only two people who left Egypt and entered into the ‘promised land’ were Joshua and Caleb. Why?

The Spineless Spies

God told Moses to send men to ‘spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel’ (Numbers 13:1-2). Each ‘spy’ was to be a leader from each tribe of Israel. Moses told the spies to ‘see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not’ (Numbers 13:18-20). Moses also told the spies to bring back some of the fruit of the land.

The spies returned after 40 days and showed everyone the ‘fruit of the land.’ They said the land ‘truly flows with milk and honey.’ So far, so good, but what they said next caused Israel to wander in the wilderness for 40 years until all but two died.

Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. Numbers 13:28-29

That was the majority report. What about the minority report?

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it. Numbers 13:30

Caleb and Joshua were the only two spies out of the twelve spies who trusted God to give them victory against the people of Canaan. This caused a big argument among the spies and with the Israelites. Things became so bad that the Israelites wanted to choose a new leader and return to Egypt! The people were ready to stone Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, that is until God intervened –

Then the Lord said to Moses: ‘How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. Numbers 14:11-12

Moses intervened for the people of Israel and God ‘pardoned’ the people from being killed immediately. However, God did punish those who did not believe Him. The spies ‘who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land,’ ‘died by the plague before the Lord.’ Joshua and Caleb lived because they believed God. As for the people of Israel, God said this –

‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you:  The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above. Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in. But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection. I the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.’ Numbers 14:28-35

That’s why a one-month journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan ended up taking the Israelites 40 years. They didn’t trust God. They doubted Him. They rejected Him and His chosen leaders. God punished them and they paid with their lives. They never got to see the ‘promised land.’

Next Time

What about Moses’ brother and sister? Aaron was the ‘high priest’ and Miriam was a ‘prophetess.’ Did they get to see the ‘promised land?’ If not, why not? We’ll look into that in the next part of our special series – The Old Testament Prophets: The Family of Moses.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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