The Twelve Scouts

Before the people left the mountain, God gave them a great many rules to live by. Some were about the tent: how to bring an offering, and who could serve there, and the one day every year when the priest went in behind the heavy curtain to put things right for the whole nation. Some were about food, and about washing, and about what to do when somebody was sick. And a great many were about how to treat each other. Leave the edges of your field unharvested, God said, so that poor people and strangers can come and eat. Do not steal, and do not lie to one another. Pay a working man his wages the same day. Stand up when an old man comes into the room. Do not make fun of a deaf person, and do not put anything in a blind man’s path. And this one, which holds all the rest together: love your neighbor as yourself.

The people traveled on through the wilderness with the cloud going before them, until at last they came near the land God had promised to give them. And the Lord said to Moses, “Send out men to go and look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel — one man from each tribe, and let each one be a leader.” So Moses chose twelve men, one from every tribe. Two of them were Caleb, and a young man named Joshua. And Moses said to them, “Go up into the hill country and see what the land is like. See whether the people there are strong or weak, and whether there are many of them or few. See whether the ground is rich or poor, and whether there are trees. Be brave — and bring back some of the fruit.” It was springtime, when the first grapes come. So the twelve men went up and walked all through the land, and they were gone forty days.

And in a valley they found grapes — one bunch so enormous that they had to cut it down and hang it on a pole and carry it home between two of them. They picked pomegranates too, and figs. Then they came back to the camp, and the whole crowd gathered around to hear. The scouts held up the fruit and said, “We went into the land you sent us to, and it truly is a land flowing with milk and honey — look at its fruit! But the people who live there are strong, and their cities are huge, with high walls all around them. We even saw giants there. Beside them we felt like grasshoppers.” The people began to be afraid. But Caleb stood up and quieted them and said, “No — let us go up now and take the land. We are well able to do it!” But the other ten said, “We cannot go up. Those people are far too strong for us.”

That night the whole camp cried out loud, and the people wept all night long. And they grumbled against Moses and Aaron and said, “If only we had died in Egypt! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land? Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in front of everybody. And Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes with grief and called out to the crowd, “The land we walked through is very, very good! If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into it and give it to us. Only do not turn away from the Lord, and do not be afraid of the people there — the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them!” But the people would not listen. They were so angry that they picked up stones — and just then the glory of the Lord shone out over the tent, where every one of them could see it.

And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people refuse to trust me, after everything they have seen me do?” And once again Moses begged for them. He said, “Lord, forgive this people, out of your great mercy — as you have forgiven them all the way from Egypt until now.” And the Lord said, “I forgive them, just as you have asked. But this is what will happen. Not one of the grown men who saw my glory and my signs, and would not listen to me, will ever see the land I promised their fathers. Their children will — the little ones they said would be taken away from them. Those children I will bring in, and the land will be theirs. And you will walk in this wilderness forty years — one year for every day the scouts were gone.” And the Lord said one thing more: “But my servant Caleb is different — there is another spirit in him, and he has followed after me. He will go into the land, and so will Joshua son of Nun.” And when Moses told the people, they mourned bitterly. In the morning some of them tried to march up the mountain after all, saying, ‘Here we are, we will go up.’ But Moses said, ‘Do not go — the Lord is not with you today.’ And they went anyway, and they were beaten back. So they turned around, back into the wilderness. And the cloud went with them, and the bread came every morning, and God did not leave them — not for one day of the forty years.