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Monday, February 25, 2013

Moses Outsmarts God – 40 years of wandering in the desert: go!

Maybe if my kids believed that God kills complainers they wouldn’t whine so much
After Moses and the Israelites left Egypt by the power of the Lord they walked through the wilderness until they got near the “Promised Land.” At that point Moses picked one person from each of the twelve tribes and sent them to check out the region to see how well fortified the current inhabitants were and how promising it looked for agriculture.
So these 12 guys scouted the land for 40 days and came back to report. They said, “This place is awesome. It totally flows with milk and honey. It’s full of people though who live in big cities with strong walls.” Caleb (one of the scouts) said, “Alright, we’ve given our report. Let’s go right now to kill all those losers living there and take it for ourselves.” However, 10 of the other scouts said, “No way! We could never move to that place. The people who already live there are too many and too strong. There is no way we could ever beat them.”
When the general populace heard this report they all got upset and cried all night. The next day they just sat around and complained saying stuff like, “Why did Jehovah bring us here to die? We’re going to either be slaughtered by the inhabitants of the Promised Land or die in the wilderness. This is terrible. It would have been better if we had just stayed in Egypt!” Once everyone got all their complaining done they decided to elect a captain to lead them back to Egypt so they could return to their former lives as slaves.
Caleb and the other “good” scout didn’t like this conversation at all. They started running through the camp telling everyone that the Promised Land was good and they should move there and kill those who were already there. It would be WAY better than returning to Egypt. Well, the fans of returning to Egypt didn’t like what Caleb and his buddy were saying so they started throwing rocks at them.
As you might imagine, Jehovah was not pleased. He appeared to the populace just in time to stop them from killing the “good” scouts and said to Moses, “This is absurd. After everything I’ve done for these jerks they still won’t behave properly. I’m going to have to kill them all now and make a new nation using only your personal family.” Moses didn’t like the sound of that so he came up with a plan to convince Jehovah to change His mind. Moses said, “Ok, yeah, sure you could do that. However, I’m pretty sure the Egyptians would hear about it. Then they’ll probably tell all the people who now inhabit the Promised Land. Then everyone will know you were unable to bring us to the Promised Land and decided to just give up and kill us in the desert. Do you really want everyone to think you’re a pussy?”
Jehovah thought about this a little while and finally said, “Well, ok then. I’ll not kill everyone. But I’m only not doing it because that’s what I want; not because of anything you said. Remember that. The Lord doesn’t bow to the will of man. Here’s what I’ll do now instead. Everyone is going to have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years to make sure that all the people over the age of 20 that complained will die here. Oh, except Caleb. Because he’s awesome he will get to survive and live in the Promised Land with his posterity.”
To finish things Jehovah killed the 10 “evil” scouts and sent the Amalekites and Canaanites to kill a bunch of those whiny Israelites.
Moral: God kills complainers.

Ref: Numbers 14

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