3. Israel’s Road Trip
Week 4 • Day 3
Have you ever been on a road trip? I remember taking the 5-hour drive to Disneyland as a kid and being excited beyond comparison to reach the “happiest place on earth”! However, I also remember not being too thrilled about the process of actually having to wait so long to get there. “How much longer?” “This sucks!” “Are we there yet?” “I’m so bored!” “I’m hungry! Can we stop for some food?” I knew that by the end of the day, we would arrive at this thrilling destination! Yet the excruciating 5-hour drive jam-packed in a car made me want to give it all up.
I wonder if the same thing can be said about the “road trip” of life. We are thrilled that God is leading us towards a future destination that is good! Yet many of us fight every step of the hours, days, weeks, years, or decades-long “road trip” it takes to actually arrive. “How much longer?” “This sucks!” “Are we there yet?” “I’m so bored!” “Can we stop so that I can meet this or that need?” We love the thought of our destination, but our disappointment and dissatisfaction “on the road” is so strong that we are tempted to give it all up for a small dose of comfort.
In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle of the testimony, and the people of Israel set out by stages from the wilderness of Sinai. And the cloud settled down in the wilderness of Paran. They set out for the first time at the command of the Lord by Moses…. So they set out from the mount of the Lord three days’ journey. And the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them three days’ journey, to seek out a resting place for them. And the cloud of the Lord was over them by day, whenever they set out from the camp. - Numbers 10:11–13, 33-34
Today, we look at the return “family road trip” of Israel! The exciting destination is the place of Canaan that YHWH had promised to Abraham. God is in the driver's seat after setting up His place in the midst of His people in the portable tabernacle! Surely, nothing could go wrong!
THE SERPENT KINGDOM: 7 REBELLIONS
The book of Numbers opens with Israel “packing up” to end their one year stay at Mount Sinai and begin their journey toward the promised place of Canaan. The kingdom family of Israel are counted by number (hence the name of the book) and are arranged according to their tribe with the presence of YHWH in the tabernacle driver’s seat. Along the way, YHWH continues to provide additional clarifications to His law to help His people continue to rule according to His holy standard of shalom as new gray area situations emerge. With the roll call completed, everyone in their assigned seats, and YHWH at the driver’s seat, their much anticipated return road trip begins! Unfortunately, once Israel leaves Mount Sinai to go towards the promised land, their obedience and dependence on God starts to unravel.
(Rebellion #1) Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused…
(Rebellion #2) The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!’ - Numbers 11:1, 4-6
This family road trip is not off to a good start! The general population of Israel had convinced themselves that there was more security in the foreign place of Egypt as opposed to God’s kingdom place that was now moving through the wilderness. Their traveling situation was so bleak that they had completely lost sight of how God had rescued them from the land of Egypt, was returning them to a better destination, and would restore them into a kingdom of priestly image-bearers under His reestablished rule.
Before long, the Israelites would eventually arrive in the desert of Paran, which was halfway to the land of Canaan promised to Abraham. There was still time to change their ways!
(Rebellion #3) Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” - Numbers 12:1–2.
(Rebellion #4) The Lord said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” So at the Lord’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites…
They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there…
…“We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. - Numbers 13:1-3, 27-28, 31-32;
That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” - Numbers 14:1-4
After a rocky start on this trip, a full family fight ensues! What should’ve been a joyous and bonding moment of laying eyes on the promised place turns into chaos and divisiveness. Miriam and Aaron, the 12 appointed leaders, and “all the members of the community” grew discontent with the way God ruled in the wilderness.
What was supposed to be an 11 day “road-trip” would turn into 40 years because of their lack of trust. YHWH responds to this lack of trust by forbidding this wandering generation from entering the promised place.
And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die. - Numbers 14: 33-35
Now, with no exciting destination in sight, the road trip inevitably devolves. The next rebellions escalated to the men of Dathan and Korah who played important roles in the community of Israel as workers in the tabernacle.
(Rebellion #5) Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” - Numbers 16:1–3
Finally, the rebellion culminates with Moses himself - God’s chosen servant - confirming our suspicions once and for all that Moses was not the serpent crusher we had been hoping for.
(Rebellion #6) And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.”
Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” - Numbers 20:2–12.
The entire camp of Israel, including the great Moses, had symbolically bent their knee to the kingdom of the serpent. If there was ever a people who deserved to be destroyed by God’s judgment, these were the people! Instead, in the midst of their complete 7-fold rebellion, God’s mercy would break through. His healing power would take the symbolic form of idolatry (bronze) and sin (serpent) hung on a tree (pole). All who would merely look upon this image of sin hung on a tree would live.
(Rebellion #7) And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. - Numbers 21:4–9.
GOD’S RESPONSE: THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
Despite their blatant disobedience, God remains perfectly balanced between being merciful to His family of people and being faithfully just to His righteous rule! By no means does God let Israel “off the hook” for disobeying God.
However, throughout the rebellions, Moses routinely pleads with the Lord to be merciful to His people for His name’s sake.
And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now. - Numbers 14:17-19
As Israel moves into the land of Moab - a stone’s throw away from the promised place of Canaan - the Moabite King Balak sees these foreigners as a growing threat. Balak hires a pagan sorcerer named Balaam to pronounce curses on them. After having a rather interesting encounter with a talking donkey (see Num. 22), Balaam is instructed by the Angel of the Lord to relay His words regarding Israel.
Then Balaam spoke his message: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.’ How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?”
Then he spoke his message: “Arise, Balak, and listen hear me, son of Zippor. God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it. “No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The Lord their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.” - Numbers 23:7-8, 18-21
No misfortune seen in Jacob? How can that be based on what we just read about Israel’s putrid family trip? Amidst rebellion after rebellion within the camp of Israel, the descendants of Jacob are totally unaware that up in the hills not far away God is looking down upon His people protecting and blessing them as they struggle their way back into the promised place.
Despite our failures and evil’s best attempts, God will continually be faithful to the gospel of the kingdom. He will rescue His people from the enemy, He will return them to the promised place, He will restore their image-bearing rule to love God and love others! Yet, it still seems like in order for all of this to work, God needs to reestablish His own rule and destroy this pesky serpent. Will we ever meet someone qualified to crush the head of the serpent once and for all? THERE IS HOPE! Balaam seems to see some type of king that would come from Israel!
Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters; his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted….I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab… A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city. - Numbers 24: 7, 17,19
The book of Numbers ends the same way it begins, a new generation of people in Israel “packing-up” to get ready for their own road trip into the promised land! God remains in the driver’s seat and continues to provide clarifications to His law while Moses prepares to turn over his leadership to Joshua, who along with Caleb was one of the leaders who urged Israel to take the promised land in the power of YHWH. We are left to wait and see if this would be the group of people who would witness the serpent-crushing event and fully bring forth God’s kingdom! Could Joshua (whose name means “YHWH is Salvation” in Hebrew) be the serpent-crusher?
These were those listed by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who listed the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For the Lord had said of them, “They shall die in the wilderness.” Not one of them was left, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. -Numbers 26:63–65
Share the Gospel: Despite our failures and evil’s best attempts, God will continually be faithful to the gospel of the kingdom. He will rescue His people from the enemy, He will return them to the promised place, He will restore their image-bearing rule to love God and love others! Yet, it still seems like in order for all of this to work, God needs to reestablish His own rule and destroy this pesky serpent. Will we ever meet someone qualified to crush the head of the serpent once and for all?
