Numbers: A Tragic Pilgrimage

The Promised Land! If it was mentioned once, it must have been mentioned a dozen times a day as the time grew closer for the Hebrews to leave Mount Sinai. By then, there was no doubt of God’s blessing: the heaven-sent cloud by day and the fire by night, Moses’s reliable leadership, as well as divine protection from enemy attack and other hindrances. But tragedy struck. At a crucial juncture, the people doubted God’s promise and retreated into unbelief. The result? Monotonous wandering in circles for almost forty years as all individuals 20 years and older died off, leaving a new generation to enter Canaan, the land of promise. The Old Testament book of Numbers is a historical account of those events surrounding the tragic pilgrimage experienced by the Hebrews between Sinai and Canaan.