Caleb and Joshua
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us. Instead of these words having the designed effect upon the people,
they increased their determined rebellion. They became in a rage,
and cried out with a loud and angry cry, that Caleb and Joshua should
be stoned, which would have been done had not the Lord interposed,
by a most signal display of his terrible glory in the tabernacle of the
congregation, before all the children of Israel.
Moses went into the tabernacle to converse with God. “And the
Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and
how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I
have shewed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and
disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier
than they. And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall
hear it, for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among
them; and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land, for they have
heard that thou, Lord, art among this people, that thou, Lord, art seen
face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest
before them, by daytime in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire
by night. Now, if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the
nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, because
the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware
unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness.”
Moses again refuses to have Israel destroyed, and himself made a
mightier nation than was Israel. This favored servant of God manifests
his love for Israel, and shows his zeal for the glory of his Maker, and
the honor of his people. As thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt
even until now, thou hast been long-suffering and merciful hitherto
toward this ungrateful people, however unworthy they may be, thy
mercy is the same. He pleads, Wilt thou not, therefore, spare them this
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once, and add this one more instance of divine patience to the many
thou hast already given?
“And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word. But as
truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles,
which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now
these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall
not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of
them that provoked me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he had