Feb 20

Based off of the excerpts from Numbers that we read, I would say that Israel’s distrust of and dissatisfaction with God and His plan for them is what leads to the wilderness generation’s condemnation.  This dissatisfaction can be seen in Numbers 11 as the Israelites complain about the manna God has given them, despite the rather appealing description it is given.  They insist that their life was better in Egypt and wish they could go back there.  Because they are dissatisfied with God and the fact that He has brought them out of slavery, God punishes them with an overabundance of meat and a plague.  In Numbers 13-14 the Israelites once again distrust God’s plan, believing that they cannot take the Promised Land, despite God’s ongoing promise that they would inhabit that land.  Because of this distrust, God once again punishes them by condemning them to wander for forty years just outside the Promised Land and then is not with them when they try to take the Promised Land on their own, leading to the deaths of many Israelites.

I think they might have closed the Pentateuch with the death of Israel to remind Israel that Moses was not God but was human, to give the law that Moses wrote down even more importance, and to show the Israelites how power should be transferred when one of their leaders dies.  Ever since Moses has come into the story, he has very much been a god-like figure, as he is often the only person who can talk to God Himself.  However, by closing the Pentateuch with Moses’ death it reminds Israel that although Moses was a great figure, in the end he was still mortal like any other person. Moses’ death also adds a little more weight to the law that he writes down at the very end of his life.  I feel that if one of his last actions while alive was to instruct the people one how to live their lives, it shows just how important these rules are.  Lastly, I think the death of Moses and his passing on of power to Joshua shows that power can be passed on peacefully and does not have to be fought over.

In the closing passages of Deuteronomy 34, it is said that never again was there a prophet as great as Moses.  This means that although in the Book of Joshua it seems as if the Israelites are experiencing great military conquests under Joshua and are much better off than they were in the desert under Moses, somehow Joshua does not compare with the greatness of Moses.  I think the text means to say that although the events of this generation seem to be ideal, there is something about them that is not as great as they might otherwise seem.