Numbers 13:25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”
This chapter is one of the most confounding episodes in the whole of the Old Testament. After centuries of promises, hoping, and planning for this moment, the people balk at entering the promised land. They found it to be everything God had said it would be and occasionally given the Patriarchs a glimpse of. Not it was theirs to receive. The evil current residents were not really a surprise; God had told them they were there and would have to be removed. He had just left them there to keep the land and cities ready for them to inhabit. How often do we look forward to what God has promised, yet then the time comes to receive them, we back away, coward out, and give up?
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