The Israelites seriously can’t get out of their own way.
Distraught over the idea that they are now forced to spend 40 years in the wilderness as the result of their disobedience, they decide to switch gears and trust God after all. When morning came after the ten unfaithful spies had died before the Lord for bringing back a bad report, the nation of Israel rose up and stated their desire to enter Canaan.
“Here we are,” they say. “We will go up to the place God has promised.”
There’s just one problem: God isn’t with them anymore.
Is God unfair in this judgment? After all, one could argue that their turnaround in Numbers 14:43 is the very definition of repentance. They saw the error of their ways, and changed their life to match what God wanted. Isn’t that what He asks of all of us?
While repentance is what God wants, what the Israelites displayed was something totally different.
For starters, let’s re-establish the fact that the only reason they wanted to take Canaan this time was because the alternative was terrible. Forty years in the wilderness? Everyone over the age of 20 dies? No thank you. I’ll take my chances with the giants in Canaan if that’s the only other option.
Second, look at what their “repentance” actually consisted of. Sure, they wanted to take the land now, but they still didn’t want to listen to what God says.
Moses explicitly tells them that what they plan to do is a transgression of God’s command (Numbers 14:41). He says God won’t be with them (Numbers 14:42). He says it twice (Numbers 14:43).
As if to punctuate that thought, Numbers 14:44 states that the Ark, God, and Moses don’t leave the camp. Israel is trying to take Canaan all by themselves. In their minds, God can either come along for the ride, or He can watch their expected victory from the sidelines.
But that’s not how repentance works. We don’t get to make up our own version of what we think God wants and then follow that; instead, repentance is a total submission to what He says. Full stop. When God said go, Israel should have gone. Now that He’s saying stop, they should stop.
The whole episode is strikingly similar to the final judgment scene in Matthew 25. When God spoke to the wicked in Matthew 25:41-46 and told them to “depart from Him,” they argue with God. In their mind, they visited Him, fed Him, gave Him water, and invited Him in. Why is He now rejecting them?
As God says, because they ignored the heart of His law. Their religion included self-righteousness and vanity, not glory to God and service to others. As God says in Luke 13:27, He “never knew them.”
Why? Because they only knew themselves.
What Israel did wasn’t repentance, it was a desperate attempt to salvage what they knew they were losing. The time to make the right choice was the day before, when they listened to the reports in the land. Today, unfortunately, was too late.
And someday, it’ll be too late for us to make the right choice, too.
