Numbers 13 & 14 • Why People Rebel

In the Wilderness with God

God took His people out of Egypt, away from the burden of slavery, and led them into the wilderness. There, they were under His constant protection, experienced group living as a community, consistently received daily provision of food, and had the strong leadership of Moses. 

God was preparing the hearts of the people for entering Canaan, the land of plenty that He was giving to them. But people can only move forward as far as they trust God’s promises and lean upon His strength. 

Going Along with a Bad Idea

Then, they arrived at the border to the land. Moses looked back at that time and recounts what happened. 

Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. ²¹ See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possessionof it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 1:20-21)

The people had an idea of how best to approach this challenge.

Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.” ²³ The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴ They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshkol and explored it.²⁵ Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.” (Deuteronomy 1:22-25)

Notice that sending out the spies was not God’s idea. The people came up with it, and Moses went along with it. Many armies send advanced teams to see what they will be facing in battle. Look at what one of the spies said, likely Joshua or Caleb, the only two who wanted to proceed forward to enter the land. 

But not all the report was so encouraging, at least from the other ten spies. Yes, there was food aplenty. But the spies discovered more than great food. We find what happened as Moses recorded it in the book of Numbers.

We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. ²⁸ But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. … “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” … We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:27-28, 31, 33)

Responding to a Mixed Report

That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. ² 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! ³ 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?” ⁴ And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (Numbers 14:1-4)

“No! We will not go into the land. We are too afraid. It is God’s fault. Let’s choose a new leader and go back to slavery!” Really?

Why Did the People Rebel?

They chose not to trust the leadership of God. 

Who had been with them all the way? God. They saw His pillar of cloud during the day and pillar of fire at night. Every day. Every night. God led them to move camp and stop to set it up. He fed them twice a day. Miraculously. He gave them structure by which to live each day and be in a relationship with Him. His presence in the tabernacle was ever before them. Yet, they rebelled and say, 

How often do you and I choose not to trust the leadership of God in our lives and prefer to go our own way or follow the world’s way to live our lives? Not a wise choice!

They saw the problem only and measured that problem against their own strength

They focused on the fortified cities and strong people, some even were extra tall. They had seen God drown the strong Egyptian army just a few months earlier. Short memory, right? Considering there were about 600,000 men of fighting age among the Israelites, they chose not to focus on that. The words of ten men made a million people quiver with fear!! That is pretty weak. 

But don’t we do the same? We focus on our problems and measure them against our own strength rather than against the power of our great God. 

They constructed a bad report. 

Filled with self-pity, they decided to blame someone else for the situation in which they found themselves. They blamed God for bringing them to this situation where they had to make a decision of “Go” or “No go.”

Notice that their rebellion was first manifested by grumbling and mumbling. They complained to one another against Moses and Aaron. In reality, they were complaining against God because that is who Moses and Aaron represented. Grumbling, also called murmuring in the Bible, is a serious offense against God. It often leads to open revolt as in this case. 

Grumbling leads to rebellion.

We often preach against sexual immorality and theft and lying. But who is preaching against grumbling, declaring it as sin. God hates grumbling. The New Testament is filled with verses warning us against grumbling. Check out these:

• 1 Corinthians 10:6-11— Paul warned the church not to test Christ or grumble, referencing how wilderness grumblers were destroyed.
• Philippians 2:14-15— Paul explicitly instructed believers to, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing”, connecting a spirit of complaint to an inability to shine as a light in the world.
• John 6:41-43—Jesus told the crowd not to grumble among themselves after they complain about His teaching that He is the “bread that came down from heaven”.
• James 5:9—James warned believers not to grumble against one another so that they are not judged, noting that the Judge is standing at the door.
• 1 Peter 4:9— Peter commanded the church to “show hospitality to one another without grumbling”

Grumbling. Spreading fear. Choosing a different leader—not God’s chosen leader. All that leads to rebellion.

The Progress of Rebellion

• Rebellion begins with an unbelief in a promise or some aspect of a promise of God. God promised they would conquer the land. They didn’t believe Him. 

• Rebellion is progressive. It has a snowball effect, getting worse and drawing in more people along the way. 

• Rebellion leads to ultimate rejection of God’s promises and rejection of God as Lord of your life. You choose your own way of approaching life or the world’s way but not God’s way. They refused to be guided.

Moses reminds them of that in Deuteronomy chapter 1.

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷ You grumbled in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸ Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. (Deuteronomy 1:26-28)

They forgot their God! They lied about their God (“He hates us”). Moses reminded them that their God was greater than any of those things they were panicking about. 

²⁹ Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. ³⁰ The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes,³¹ and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place. ³² In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God,³³ who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.” (Deuteronomy 1:29-33)

But they did not listen. How often do we forget the power of our God? How often do we refuse to remember His promise to lead us and care for us? How often do we choose not to remember His goodness to us in the past? 

Dear reader, do not rebel against your God. Remember His greatness and His goodness toward you. 

• Have you been waiting for a prayer to be answered? Trust in His timing. He could be working in the background to answer that prayer in the future. 

• Has God not given you what you expected? Release your expectations of acceptable outcomesand experience joy rather than disappointment. 

• Are you paralyzed by fear? Trust in God’s goodness to help you walk from fear to faith. 

Commit yourself to following God’s way of approaching life rather than the world’s way or your own way. 

Read the article, “Miriam • Learn to Apply Faith to Any Fear.”

Miriam lived during this time of Israel’s history. Her life is covered in the Everyday Women Bible Study and in the short and easy The Walk from Fear to Faith Bible Study.