Have you ever been reading along and suddenly realized something that you hadn’t thought of before? That happened to me today!
So Moses and company fight their last battle together, and defeat King Og and the region of Bashan. That’s important for several reasons.
1. God is demonstrating to Israel that they can be victorious in battle. He does this while they still have Moses with them, so they will be emboldened. If Moses had gone to heaven before the battle and Joshua was the leader for the very first battle they might have become afraid. But they knew God was with Moses, and so they fought alongside him and were victorious. Now they know they can do it. Even though Moses is being punished by not going to the Promised Land God still cares about him. And even though the people were disobedient and had to wander in the desert for 40 years, God still cares about them as well. Taking Moses from them too early could have caused them to freeze in fear (again) and then they might have been destroyed.
2. This King Og was a giant, and as far as giants go he might have been a small one…only 13 feet tall! That’s over twice the size of any other person, and maybe close to 2 1/2 times the size of an Israelite. When the Israelite scouts reported 40 years ago that the land was filled with “giants” they weren’t kidding. They actually did look like grasshoppers to this race of people. These giants are believed by some to be the remnants of the Nephilium, the “sons of God” who intermarried with human women and produced enormous offspring.
These are Moses’ last words to the people. He has led them for 40 plus years, he has carried them on his heart for over 80 years. He has known three generations, one in slavery and two in the desert. He has given his life over to leading these people, governing, shepherding, guiding and problem solving. He has kept the vision of the Promised Land before them for all of the 40 years. Under his leadership the community has exploded in size, even though a generation has passed away. This humble, God fearing and devoted man turns his face to his creator and asks to be forgiven and allowed to enter the Promised Land with the people. My Bible says God became angry with him and said “No” again. Why do you suppose that is? Was the transgression that great? Surely God has already forgiven far greater sins, why not this one? So here’s what popped into my head this morning….
Here’s what I thought of for the first time:
God isn’t angry with Moses because he asked, He’s angry because He has already promised that Moses cannot go in, and He has to keep His promise. He loves Moses, and knows how much Moses wants this, and I believe that God wants it for him. I believe that God wanted him to go in…but He can’t allow it, because then the whole nation will not learn the lesson…there are consequences for not following God’s commands. They might think that when God says “no” it means “maybe”…and that’s not true. Moses must not enter, for the sake of the people.
At the same time, the Promised Land is nothing compared to where Moses is going. I’m sure that God understands that Moses only wants to see the Promised Land because he doesn’t understand his better option….to see the real “Promised Land”.
Moses will stand in the land that Israel is going to conquer, but it won’t be until Jesus ascends the mount of Transfiguration, and meets with Moses and Elijah at that place.
This chapter has so many good verses and thoughts that we could go on for quite a while mentioning them all. For instance, I especially like 39:4 “the Lord is God and there is no other”
Faithfully,
PR