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Forty Years of Wandering in the Wilderness
255
In one case, one of the mixed multitude that had come up with
Israel from Egypt left his own part of the camp and entered that of
the Israelites, claiming the right to pitch his tent there. A quarrel
developed between him and an Israelite, and the matter was referred
[201]
to the judges. They decided against the offender.
Very angry at this decision, he cursed the judge and blasphemed
the name of God. He was immediately brought before Moses. The
man was placed under guard until the will of God could be known.
God Himself pronounced sentence—by divine direction the blas-
phemer was conducted outside the camp and stoned to death. Those
who had been witnesses to the sin placed their hands upon his head,
thus solemnly testifying to the truth of the charge against him. Then
they threw the first stones, and the people who stood by then joined
in executing the sentence. [
See
Leviticus 24:14
;
Deuteronomy 17:7
.
]
Should Sabbath Breakers Be Stoned?
If this man’s sin had been allowed to go unpunished, others
would have been encouraged to do evil, and as a result many people
would eventually have died.
The mixed multitude that came up with the Israelites from Egypt
claimed to worship the true God and to have given up idolatry, but
they were more or less corrupted with idolatry and irreverence. They
seeded the camp with idolatrous practices and grumblings against
God.
Soon someone violated the Sabbath. The Lord’s announcement
that He would disinherit Israel had awakened a spirit of rebellion.
One of the people, angry at being excluded from Canaan and de-
termined to show his defiance of God’s law, dared to transgress the
fourth commandment openly by going out to gather sticks on the
Sabbath. During the stay in the wilderness, building fires on the
seventh day had not been allowed. This rule was not to continue in
the land of Canaan, but in the wilderness fire was not needed for
warmth. This was a willful and deliberate decision of breaking the
fourth commandment—a sin of presumption.
Moses brought the case before the Lord, and the direction was
given, “The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation
shall stone him with stones outside the camp” (
Numbers 15:35
). The