I was reading Numbers recently and noticed something interesting. When the Israelites told God they wouldn't enter Canaan because of what their spies told them, as punishment God said that they would wander in the desert for forty years until everyone twenty years old and older had died, except for Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 14:30).
At this point, Moses and Aaron hadn't yet hit the stone to get the people water, the act that prevented them from entering the Promised Land (Numbers 20, which apparently took place many years after Numbers 14). I find it interesting that back at the pronouncement of the forty-year punishment, God didn't include Aaron and Moses in the exception clause. He never had to take back his promise that they'd make it there.
I wonder if Moses ever thought about that and went over the promises in his mind to see if he'd been missing something all along. I wonder how disappointed he was and if it was one of those breath-stealing moments when all the clues came together for him.
Posted by at June 21, 2004 8:35 PM