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Welcome. I'm Cliff Hedges. This is Pastor Cliff's Notes. This is a podcast where we are studying the Bible. We're working our way through the book of Numbers. Today is episode 1620, and we're looking at Numbers chapter 13, verses 1 through 16. So the first part of Numbers, chapters 1 through 10, God was getting the Israelites ready to move from Sinai to the promised land, Canaan. The cloud lifted up from the tabernacle that was the signal to go, and the people moved out very orderly. But then three days later grumbling began. It started Taborah. There was grumbling about hardships of the wilderness, and the Lord's fire burned around the outskirts of the camp. But Moses prayed and the Lord relented. Then at Kibrothava they complained about food. They were tired of manna, they wanted meat. And the grumbling spread throughout the camp. Even Moses started grumbling, but he was complaining about the people. But God responded by providing help for Moses. Then he provided meat in the forp of quail for the people. But it was so much they were actually sick of it by the time they got through it all. And there was a plague that struck down those who were craving the meat. Then last time we saw a third episode of grumbling, this time it's Miriam and Aaron, Moses' siblings, and they're grumbling that Moses shouldn't be seen as the only one God speaks to. What about them? And then God struck Miriam with a serious skin disease where she would have to be sent out of the camp, essentially forever. But Moses prayed for her, and God healed her of the disease, but said she still had to go spend seven days outside the camp. Now we are near the promised land, at the edge of the promised land, at Kedish Barnea. Doesn't tell us that here. We'll see in chapter 13, verse 26, Kedish. Then we'll see Kedish Barnea in chapter 32, verse 8. So it brings us to Numbers 13, verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses, send men to scout out the land of Canaan, I am giving to the Israelites. Send one man who is a leader among them from each of their ancestral tribes. So this looks like it's God's idea to send the scouts. And there's some disagreement. Should we call them scouts or shall we call them spies? The ones who go into Jericho later, they're generally considered spies. Here we often call them scouts. Sometimes traditionally we call them spies. They're not going in under cover of darkness, they're just going to scout out the land. But here it seems like it's God's idea to do this. Well, later in Deuteronomy, Moses talks about this event. And in Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 19 through 22, Moses says, We then set out from Horeb and went across the great and terrible wilderness that you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us. Well, Horeb is another name for Sinai. Continuing, when we reached Kadesh Barnea, I said to you, You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, on which the Lord our God is giving us. See the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up and take possession of it, as the Lord the God of your ancestors has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Then all of you approached me and said, Let's send men ahead of us, so that they may explore the land for us, and bring us back a report about the route we should go up and the cities we will come to. The plan seemed good to me, so I selected twelve men from among you, one man from each tribe. So seems like the account in Deuteronomy is more from the people's perspective. Yeah, the people said, Well, before we run into the land of Canaan, shouldn't we check it out? What's the best route? What's the best order to attack the cities? That kind of thing? And Moses said, I guess maybe it seems like a good idea, but it seems that then Moses spoke to God about it, and God said, Okay, that'll work. Select one man from each tribe and send them to scout out the land. Verse 3. Moses sent them from the wilderness of Peron at the Lord's command. All the men were leaders in Israel. So these are not the ancestral tribal leaders. We've seen them before listed in numbers. These are men who are leaders. We're not told exactly what that means, but there's some kind of leaders within the tribe. There's authorities or recognized their names the people of the tribe would know. Verse four, these were their names. Shema, son of Zakir, from the tribe of Reuben, Shapat, son of Hori, from the tribe of Simeon, Caleb, son of Jephuna, from the tribe of Judah, Egal, son of Joseph, from the tribe of Issachar, Hosea, son of Nun from the tribe of Ephraim, Palti, son of Rafu from the tribe of Benjamin, Gadiel, son of Sodi, from the tribe of Zebulon, Gadi, son of Susi from the tribe of Manasseh, from the tribe of Joseph, Amiel, son of Gamali, from the tribe of Dan, Sether, son of Michael, from the tribe of Asher, Nabi, son of Boshi from the tribe of Naptali, Guel, son of Maki from the tribe of Gad. These were the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land. And Moses renamed Hoshea, son of nun, Joshua. So here's the twelve tribes. Now notice Levi is not part of this. We have the two tribes from Joseph, the tribe of Manasseh and the tribe of Ephraim. So we have twelve tribes, and then Levi is not part of this, since they will not actually have a land inheritance, and they were not part of the census of chapter one. The census was to count the army, and these are the tribes who will go be the army to take the promised land. Now the order the tribes are in, it's not like any of the orders we've seen so far. We've already seen a couple of different ways of ordering the tribes. And there doesn't appear to be any real reason for this particular order. And it's very similar to the previous list we've seen, only a few of them are in a different order. Why? No reason given. And probably no reason for it, other than just that's the way it's listed. We end here with verse 16 with this comment that Moses renamed Hoshia, son of Nun, Joshua. Back in verse 8, we saw Hoshea son of Nun from the tribe of Ephraim. So, yeah, we know Joshua. We've seen Joshua a few times. Joshua led the Israelite army, such as it was, as they left Egypt to fight against the Amalekites. Joshua was the one who went up on Mount Sinai with Moses. He stayed back as Moses went up to directly speak with God. So Joshua's been this assistant of Moses. In fact, we saw him just a couple of chapters ago when the 70 elders were given the Spirit of God and they were prophesying. Joshua said, Hey, should they be doing that, Moses? And Moses said, certainly they should. So here we're told that Moses renamed Hoshea to be Joshua. Now Hoshea means salvation. Joshua means Yahweh saves. Actually, later in Hebrew, it will be shortened to Yahshua, which is Jesus. Now, likely this happened sometime earlier. That's why we've been calling him Joshua all along. But it probably here because this is so tied to the tribal lineage. And so this is his given name within the tribe, Hoshia, and then this footnote basically saying, Yeah, but we all know him as Joshua because Moses had given him a new name. Why did Moses give him a new name? We're not told why, but that often happens. We see biblically God renamed Abram, Abraham renamed Jacob, Israel, and we see then Jesus renaming some of his followers, disciples, to sons of thunder. But the bottom line here is he was a close associate with Moses. Moses is like a father figure to him, and Moses gives him a new name, more appropriate to how Moses views his duties. So great hope here. Sounds like there's excitement here. They are finally at the Promised Land. They've been out of Egypt just over a year. They're only a few weeks out of the wilderness of Sinai, and now they're actually at the Promised Land. And really, it was Moses giving them the charge. Let's march on in and take the promised land. They said, Well, let's go check it out first. And so this is okay, let's go check it out first. So should be moving into the promised land to conquer it any moment now, as soon as this scouts come back with their report. We'll see how that actually goes next time. Thanks for joining me. Join me again next time as we continue working through numbers.