“The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south; and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.
“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, … for we are well able to overcome it.
“But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
“And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched, … saying, … all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.
“And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, … and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight.”
Had Moses been gifted with military talent, or with any of the higher instincts of the soldier, he would have arranged to have received this report in private and would then have acted as he thought best. Above all he would have avoided anything like a council of war by the whole congregation, for a vast popular meeting of that kind was certain to become unmanageable the moment a division appeared in their command, upon a difficult question of policy.
Moses did just the opposite. He convened the people to hear the report of the “spies.” And immediately the majority became dangerously depressed, not to say mutinous.
“And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
“And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would God we had died in this wilderness!…
“And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
“Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.”
But Joshua, who was a soldier, when Moses thus somewhat ignominiously collapsed, retained his presence of mind and his energy. He and Caleb “rent their clothes,” and reiterated their advice.
“And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.
“If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
“Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them… fear them not.
“But all the congregation bade stone them with stones.”
By this time Moses seems to have recovered some composure. Enough, at least, to repeat certain violent threats of the “Lord.”
Nothing is so impressive in all this history as the difference between Moses when called upon to take responsibility as a military commander, and Moses when, not to mince matters, he acted as a quack. On the one hand, he was all vacillation, timidity, and irritability. On the other, all temerity and effrontery.
In this particular emergency, which touched his very life, Moses vented his disappointment and vexation in a number of interviews which he pretended to have had with the “Lord,” and which he retailed to the congregation, just at the moment when they needed, as Joshua perceived, to be steadied and encouraged.
“How long,” vociferated the Lord, when Moses had got back his power of speech, “will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?
“I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.”
But when Moses had cooled a little and came to reflect upon what he had made the “Lord” say, he fell into his ordinary condition of hesitancy. Supposing some great disaster should happen to the Jews at Kadesh, which lay not so very far from the Egyptian border, the Egyptians would certainly hear of it, and in that case the Egyptian army might pursue and capture Moses. Such a contingency was not to be contemplated, and accordingly Moses began to make reservations. It must be remembered that all these ostensible conversations with the “Lord” went on in public; that is to say, Moses proffered his advice to the Lord aloud, and then retailed his version of the answer he received.
“Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,–
“Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness....
“Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.
“And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word.”
Had Moses left the matter there it would not have been so bad, but he could not contain his vexation, because his staff had not divined his wishes. Those men, though they had done their strict duty only, must be punished, so he thought, to maintain his ascendancy.
Of the twelve “spies” whom Moses had sent into Canaan to report to him, ten had incurred his bitter animosity because they failed to render him such a report as would sustain him before the people in making the campaign of invasion to which he felt himself pledged, and on the success of which his reputation depended. Of these ten men, Moses, to judge by the character of his demands upon the Lord, thought it incumbent on him to make an example, in order to sustain his own credit.
To simply exclude these ten spies from Palestine, as he proposed to do with the rest of the congregation, would hardly be enough, for the rest of the Hebrews were, at most, passive, but these ten had wilfully ignored the will of Moses, or, as he expressed it, of the Lord. Therefore it was the Lord’s duty, as Moses saw it, to punish them. And this Moses proposed that the Lord should do in a prompt and awful manner: the lesson being pointed by the immunity of Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who had had the wit to divine the will of Moses. Therefore, all ten of these men died of the plague while the congregation lay encamped at Kadesh, though Joshua and Caleb remained immune.
Moses, as the commanding general of an attacking army, took a course diametrically opposed to that of Joshua, and calculated to be fatal to victory. He vented his irritation in a series of diatribes which he attributed to the “Lord,” and which discouraged and confused his men at the moment when their morale was essential to success.
Therefore, the Lord, according to Moses, went on:
“But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
“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 swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:
“But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went;…”
Having said all this, and, as far as might be, disorganized the army, Moses surrendered suddenly his point. He made the “Lord” go on to command: “Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.” But, not even yet content, Moses assured them that this retreat should profit them nothing.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.” And the Lord continued:
“Say unto them, As truly as I live, … as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you.
“Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, … from twenty