CHAPTER 1

(1451 B.C.)

THE PROMISE OF GOD

¹These be the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. (This Message was given by Moses to Israel shortly before the great Law-giver died, and thereby shortly before Israel went into the Promised Land.)

²(There are eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea [Eleven days journey from Mount Sinai, where the Law was given].)

³And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke unto the Children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in Commandment unto them (this will be his last word to Israel; the time of these Words will be approximately a month previous to his death; the theme of his Message is that possession of Canaan was dependent upon the keeping of the Law given at Sinai; Sinai was one of the peaks of a mountain mass named Horeb);

⁴After he had slain Sihon the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, which dwelt at Astaroth in Edrei (by the destruction of these kings, who sought to bar the access of the Israelites to the Promised Land, God had given proof that He would indeed fulfill His Promise to His people):

⁵On this side Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare this Law, saying (nothing but prosperity was promised upon fidelity to that Law, and nothing but misery if unfaithful thereto; a lesson of the Book is the impossibility of the natural man taking hold upon and keeping Divine privileges),

⁶The LORD our God spoke unto us in Horeb, saying, You have dwelt long enough in this Mount (the phrase, Lord our God, implies the Covenant union of Israel with Jehovah, and presupposes the existence of that Covenant, which was entered into at Sinai):

⁷Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the Mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places near thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates. (This description encompasses the whole of the Promised Land. It included all of modern Jordan, Syria, and even Iraq, at least as far as the Euphrates River. It was considerably larger than the small portion claimed by Israel presently. To be sure, in the coming Kingdom Age, Israel will occupy all of this, and possibly even more.)

⁸Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them (God keeps His Promises! As well, Israel could have occupied the land 38 years earlier had they evidenced faith).

JUDGES

⁹And I spoke unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone:

¹⁰The LORD your God has multiplied you, and, behold, you are this day as the stars of Heaven for multitude (exactly as the Lord told Abraham it would be [Gen. 15:5-6]).

¹¹(The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as you are, and bless you, as He has promised you! [God desires to bless His people. The only qualification is obedience.])

¹²How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance (entanglements), and your burden, and your strife?

¹³Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your Tribes, and I will make them rulers over you (you select the ones you desire).

¹⁴And you answered me, and said, The thing which you have spoken is good for us to do.

¹⁵So I took the chief of your Tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, Captains over thousands, and Captains over hundreds, and Captains over fifties, and Captains over tens, and Officers among your Tribes.

¹⁶And I charged your Judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger who is with him.

¹⁷You shall not respect persons in judgment; but you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the Judgment is Gods: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.

¹⁸And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do. (It appears from the following Passages that this arrangement of the people selecting leaders over them did not turn out too very well. These leaders, even as the following Passages proclaim, registered unbelief, and doomed that generation of Israel in the wilderness.)

REBELLION

¹⁹And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which you saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

²⁰And I said unto you, You are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the LORD our God does give unto us.

²¹Behold, the LORD your God has set the land before you: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has said unto you; fear not, neither be discouraged.

²²And you came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. (If we plan for ourselves, in some way, the plans are always wrong. If we allow God to plan for us, His plans are guaranteed of success. Israel did not allow the Lord, at least at this juncture, to plan for them. The knowledge they sought portrayed a lack of faith.)

²³And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a Tribe (Moses was guilty somewhat in this situation, as well; he should have taken the matter to the Lord, but the evidence is that he didnt):

²⁴And they turned and went up into the mountain, and came unto the valley of Eshcol, and searched it out.

²⁵And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God does give us.

²⁶Notwithstanding you would not go up, but rebelled against the Commandment of the LORD your God:

²⁷And you murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, He has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us (they lied on God; to be sure, that is one of the biggest sins in the modern Church, as well!).

²⁸Whither shall we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there (they saw the walled cities and the giants; what is it that you see?).

²⁹Then I said unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them (we are to see the Promises of God alone, for we walk by Faith and not by sight).

³⁰The LORD your God which goes before you, He shall fight for you, according to all that He did for you in Egypt before your eyes (they had seen the great miracles of the Lord, so they should have known better);

³¹And in the wilderness, where you have seen how that the LORD your God bore you, as a man does bear his son, in all the way that you went, until you came into this place (the miracles which began in Egypt continued in the wilderness, and were obvious to all).

³²Yet in this thing you did not believe the LORD your God (they registered a continuing unbelief),

³³Who went in the way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to show you by what way you should go, and in a cloud by day (the visible Presence of God was obvious, both day and night, and for all to see; as well, that visible Presence led them, and supplied their every need; so, again and again, due to the constant miracles, they had no cause for unbelief and neither do we).

PUNISHMENT

³⁴And the LORD heard the voice of your words, and was angry, and swore, saying,

³⁵Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I swore to give unto your fathers (all Promises of God to us are dependent upon our obedience, and that speaks of continuing Faith in Him),

³⁶Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he has trodden upon, and to his children, because he has wholly followed the LORD (God is no respecter of persons; what He did for Caleb and Joshua, He will do for any and all who believe Him).

³⁷Also the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, saying, You also shall not go in thither (speaks of his own failure in striking the Rock, when he was told to speak to It [Num. 20:7-12]).

³⁸But Joshua the son of Nun, which stands before you, he shall go in thither: encourage him: for he shall cause Israel to inherit it (as Joshua, even the greatest among us need encouragement).

³⁹Moreover your little ones, which you said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it (they had accused God of bringing their children into the wilderness in order to kill them, and He, in answer to that accusation, told them that their children would survive the wilderness and inherit the Promised Land, but they would not [Num., Chpt. 14]).

⁴⁰But as for you, turn you, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.

DEFEAT

⁴¹Then you answered and said unto me, We have sinned against the LORD, we will go up and fight, according to all that the LORD our God commanded us. And when you had girded on every man his weapons of war, you were ready to go up into the hill. (However, what they were doing now was in the flesh; the only result could be defeat. Many in the modern Church are fighting, but they are fighting a battle which the Lord never designed. Presently, we are told to fight only one fight, the good fight of faith, which refers to Faith in Christ, and what He has done for us at the Cross [I Tim. 6:12].)

⁴²And the LORD said unto me, Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight; for I am not among you; lest you be smitten before your enemies (they were warned!).

⁴³So I spoke unto you; and you would not hear, but rebelled against the Commandment of the LORD, and went presumptuously up into the hill (presumption is one of the great sins of the modern Church).

⁴⁴And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah.

⁴⁵And you returned and wept before the LORD; but the LORD would not hearken to your voice, nor give ear unto you (the weeping was for their dilemma, and not the weeping of the soul for their sin of unbelief).

⁴⁶So you abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that you abode there (out of the Will of God, the days are long!).