XVIII.

Kadesh.

And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried; and the
people wept that night.-NUM. xiv. 1.

THE short account of which is, in another place :

For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works. -Ps. lxxviii, 22.

-Or, as Moses summed it up:

Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.-DEUT. ix, 25.

-You see what murmurings mean. You see what fears -acted out-may come to. For this time it was fear. Water was plenty; and they had had flesh enough at last; so now a fit of lazy faint-heartedness came on. 'Doubleminded' people are never without an excuse around their feet, where the whole-souled ones walk clear and free. As usual, the trouble had begun some time before. From the day they left Egypt, by day and by night, Israel had been following the direct leadership of the Lord.

The Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.-DEUT. xxxii. 12.

-Through the flood on foot, and over the dry places, and across the great terrible wilderness,

He led them on safely, so that they feared not.-Ps. lxxviii, 53.

-And the leading had been like this:

As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings. — DEUT. xxxii. 11.

-So tender, so powerful, so wise. And while it was all wilderness, Israel was content, in a sort, to let the Lord lead; and willing that he should open the way when they were at a stand. For all these months past, they had had nothing to do but to follow and to receive. And there was no reason why that sweet, sure state of things should not go on. The fact that they were coming into new and untried ways by no means touched the matter. And I am half at a loss to understand Israel's action here. Was it because there was now something for them to do that their faith failed? Was it the thought of other people, and of measuring wits with them? All through the trackless desert God had led them. He

Made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.-Ps. lxxviii. 52.

-And one does not see why the flock should have been

suddenly seized with admiration of their own care and skill; yet so it seemed. New orders had been sent out; explicit, clear, immediate. They could not say-as people do sometimes-O if I only knew what the Lord would have me do!'-for they did know.

Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the seaside, to the land of Canaan, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates. Behold, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers.-DEUT. i. 7, 8.

-People of ordinary intelligence could have carried out such orders, one would think,-with the help of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. But behold, Israel had suddenly become wise in their own conceit.

Vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.-ROM. i. 21, 22.

-Must we not then use our own judgment? O yes, in many cases, and under direction. But when the Lord has said, 'This do, and live,' there is small need of human comment or explanations. Yet the thing sounded specious, and even Moses was taken in at first. His own mind was clear enough.

Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee possess it.-DEUT. i. 21.

go up and

But they

They

--Nobody ventured to exactly gainsay that.
came up in soft procession, saying smooth words.

were all ready to do it, of course, only how was it to be done? And too much 'how' is as bad as a negative. How? had they not still the Lord going before them, to point out the way?

Ye shall not go out with haste, nor by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rearward.—Isa. lii. 12.

-Will 'gather you up,'-so the word is. this was not enough.

But it seems

Ye came near unto me, every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come.-DEUT. i. 22.

-It sounded plausible,-like what we call wise precaution; and Moses in the innocence of his heart (some men never do know the world) was well pleased. We are not told that the people inquired concerning the pleasure of the Lord, but probably Moses did; for the answer is set down at length.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel.-NUM. xiii. 1, 2.

-In grave, sad irony the words seem spoken. Let twelve men examine the land which I, the Lord, give, and see whether it is worth the having. See also, in short, whether I can give it, or whether the Canaanites are too strong. And arrange a way of approach: something more definite than the mere fire by night and cloud by day-the ceaseless, changeless: Lo, I am with you.

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.-Ps. xxxii. 8.

-Israel was tired of living by the day,-and again God gave them up to their own hearts' desire. The spies went and came; and the result was this:

All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.-NUM. xiv. 1.

Let us go up at once, and possess it, said the two faithful scouts,— for we are well able to overcome it.-NUM. xiii. 30.

We,-strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.—EPH. vi. 10. The Lord your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.DEUT. i. 30.

He will not fail thee nor forsake thee.-DEUT. xxxi. 6.

-So stands the promise: the word of him who 'fainteth not, neither is weary;' that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes ;'

They that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.-ISA. xli. 12.

-And you know it; you have had experience of it.

Thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place.-DEUT. i. 31.

-Safe in the arms of Jesus,' you have passed throughone after another, as they came-the hard places, the flood, the fire. Can it ever be true of you now, as it was of Israel then :