Commentary - Numbers 14:39-45

Bird's-eye view

Here we have a textbook case of the difference between repentance and remorse. God has just handed down His sentence to the unbelieving generation of Israel: forty years of wandering in the wilderness, a year for each day the spies were in the land. Their unbelief has slammed the door to the Promised Land shut. This passage records their immediate reaction, which is a disastrous attempt to fix their sin of cowardice with a new sin of presumption. They mistake the sorrow of consequences for the sorrow of true repentance, and the result is a thorough drubbing at the hands of their enemies. This is a stark lesson on the folly of trying to obey God on your own terms and on your own timetable. True obedience is not just doing the right thing, but doing it at the right time and for the right reason. Anything else is just another flavor of rebellion.

Outline

Commentary

39 Then Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

Moses, the faithful mediator, delivers the hard word of God. He does not soften the blow. The sentence is forty years of death in the desert. The people's reaction is to mourn greatly. But we must learn to distinguish between different kinds of sorrow. There is a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and life, and there is a worldly sorrow that leads to death (2 Cor. 7:10). This is worldly sorrow. This is the grief of a thief who is sorry he got caught, not sorry that he stole. They are not mourning their sin of unbelief; they are mourning the consequences of that unbelief. Had they truly repented, their first response would have been to submit to the judgment of God, acknowledging it as just.

40 In the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, “Here we are; we will go up to the place which Yahweh has promised because we have indeed sinned.”

Their mourning quickly curdles into a new form of rebellion. Instead of submitting, they decide to fix the problem themselves. They get up early, full of carnal resolve. Their confession, "we have indeed sinned," is technically true, but it is the preface to further disobedience, not the foundation for humble submission. They are trying to bargain with God. They are saying, in effect, "Okay, we failed the test yesterday. Let us take it again today and we promise to get it right this time." But God does not grade on a curve, and the time for that particular test was over. They are now trying to seize by force what they refused to receive by faith. This is the essence of salvation by works.

41 But Moses said, “Why then do you trespass against the command of Yahweh, when it will not succeed?

Moses immediately identifies their action for what it is: a trespass. They are crossing a line. Yesterday, the command was "go up." Today, the command is "turn back." Their sin yesterday was a failure to obey the command to go up. Their sin today is a direct violation of the new command. Notice the two prongs of Moses' rebuke. First, it is a transgression against God's revealed will. Second, it is utterly foolish because "it will not succeed." Sin is not only wicked, it is stupid. It never accomplishes what it sets out to do. Rebellion against God is the ultimate fool's errand.

42 Do not go up, for Yahweh is not among you, so that you are not defeated before your enemies.

Here is the heart of the matter. The single most important factor in any spiritual battle is the presence of God. Yahweh is not among them. Their attempt to march on the Promised Land is now just a secular military campaign, and a foolish one at that. They are going into battle without their Captain. The warning is a grace. God is telling them plainly what the outcome will be: defeat. He is giving them one last chance to turn back from their presumptuous folly.

43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned back from following Yahweh. And Yahweh will not be with you.”

Moses spells it out. The enemies they feared yesterday are still there. Nothing has changed on the ground. The only thing that has changed is that God's presence and blessing have been withdrawn from this particular endeavor. Notice the reason for their defeat: "inasmuch as you have turned back from following Yahweh." Their forward march is, ironically, the very act of turning away from the Lord. True following of God means obeying His present command, not trying to belatedly obey a past command that has been superseded. Moses repeats the central, devastating fact: "And Yahweh will not be with you."

44 But they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country; neither the ark of the covenant of Yahweh nor Moses moved from the camp.

The Hebrew word for "heedlessly" carries the sense of swelling up with pride, of being presumptuous. They were puffed up. They ignored the clear warning from God's prophet and charged ahead. The next phrase is one of the most tragic in the Old Testament. The people march off to war, but the symbols of God's presence and authority remain behind. The Ark was the visible throne of their King. Moses was His appointed representative. For the army to march without the Ark and without Moses was to declare their independence from God. They were a rogue platoon, an army acting without orders and without its king. They were doomed before the first spear was thrown.

45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah.

The result is precisely what God, through Moses, had predicted. The consequence is swift, brutal, and decisive. The enemies they were supposed to drive up and out of the hills now come down upon them like a hammer. Their presumptuous ascent results in a humiliating descent. They are not just defeated; they are routed, beaten down all the way to a place called Hormah. The name Hormah is related to the Hebrew word for "destruction" or "devotion to destruction." Their presumptuous attempt to seize the promise resulted in them being devoted to destruction. This is what happens when men try to achieve God's promises through the energy of the flesh.

Application

This episode is a powerful illustration of the dead-end street that is self-willed religion. Israel's sin was unbelief, and their attempt to atone for it was not repentance, but a work of the flesh. They tried to substitute their own zealous activity for humble faith and obedience.

This is a perpetual temptation for the people of God. When we sin, our fleshly impulse is often to "make up for it" through some flurry of religious activity. We try to fix our failure with our own efforts. But the gospel teaches us that the only proper response to our sin and failure is to cast ourselves upon the mercy of God in Christ, accepting His verdict and trusting in His grace alone.

We cannot advance into the promises of God without the presence of God. To march without the Ark, without Christ our Mediator, is to march toward certain defeat. Our confidence must not be in our resolutions, our sincerity, or our strength, but only in the fact that He has promised to be with us. True faith does not run ahead of God in presumption, nor does it lag behind in unbelief. True faith walks with God, in submission to His word and His timing.