The Wilderness Wandering

After receiving the Law at Mount Sinai, the children of Israel set out for the Promised Land. What should have been an eleven-day journey became a forty-year wandering in the wilderness because of their lack of faith in God’s promises.

The Journey Begins

The cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, and the children of Israel set out from the Wilderness of Sinai according to the commandment of the Lord. The pillar of cloud went before them by day and the pillar of fire by night, just as God had promised.

The sight was magnificent - over two million people organized by tribes, each with their own banners and appointed places in the great procession. The Levites carried the sacred tabernacle and its furnishings in the center, while the other tribes marched around them in perfect order.

Children walked alongside their parents, wide-eyed at the adventure ahead. Young men carried the family possessions, while elderly grandparents told stories of the great deliverance from Egypt. Flocks and herds moved with the people, creating a massive migration across the desert.

Complaints in the Wilderness

But the people soon began to complain. The mixed multitude that had come with them from Egypt began to crave the foods they had left behind.

“Who will give us meat to eat?” they cried, gathering in groups around their tents. “We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”

Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent. The sound of their complaining filled the camp like the wailing of mourners.

Moses was greatly distressed and said to the Lord, “Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,’ to the land which You swore to their fathers?”

God Provides Meat

The Lord’s anger was aroused, but He also provided for His people. “Say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat.’”

A wind went out from the Lord, and it brought quail from the sea and left them fluttering near the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground. The people gathered quail all that day, all night, and all the next day.

But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. Those who had craved meat died in that place, which was called Kibroth Hattaavah, meaning “Graves of Craving.”

The Spy Mission

When they reached Kadesh Barnea at the border of the Promised Land, the Lord spoke to Moses: “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”

Moses chose twelve men, one from each tribe, including Caleb from Judah and Joshua from Ephraim. He gave them careful instructions: “Go up this way into the South, and go up to the mountains, and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not. Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land.”

Exploring the Promised Land

The twelve spies went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. They went through the South and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived.

When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes so large that they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some pomegranates and figs.

For forty days they explored the land, examining its cities, meeting its people, and testing its soil. They saw fortified cities with walls reaching high into the sky. They encountered the sons of Anak, giants who made them feel like grasshoppers in comparison.

The Report

After forty days, they returned to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran. They brought back word and showed them the fruit of the land.

“We went to the land where you sent us,” they reported, displaying the enormous cluster of grapes. “It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.”

The people gathered around, marveling at the size and quality of the fruit. Surely this was evidence of God’s goodness and the richness of the land He had promised them.

But then ten of the spies continued with fear in their voices: “Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”

Faith Versus Fear

Caleb stepped forward and quieted the people before Moses. With confidence ringing in his voice, he declared, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it!”

But the ten spies who had gone with him contradicted him: “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” They gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

The People’s Rebellion

That night, all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept. All the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.”

Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation. But Joshua and Caleb, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and spoke to all the congregation:

“The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”

God’s Judgment

But the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel.

The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

Once again, Moses interceded for the people, pleading with God to forgive them according to His great mercy.

The Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word; but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.”

The Sentence

“According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection. I the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”

The ten spies who had brought the evil report died by the plague before the Lord. But Joshua and Caleb, who had encouraged faith in God’s promises, remained alive.

Forty Years of Wandering

So began the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. The generation that had been delivered from Egypt would not enter the Promised Land. Only their children, along with Joshua and Caleb, would inherit what God had promised.

During these long years, God continued to provide for His people. The manna fell each morning except on the Sabbath. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell during the forty years in the wilderness.

It was a time of testing and discipline, but also of God’s faithful provision. A new generation grew up in the wilderness - a generation that would learn to trust God completely and would be ready to possess the land their parents had been afraid to enter.

Lessons in the Desert

The wilderness years taught many lessons:

Faith must be stronger than fear. The ten spies saw the same land as Joshua and Caleb, but fear clouded their vision while faith clarified it.

God’s promises are sure. Despite the people’s unbelief, God remained faithful to His covenant. The Promised Land was still waiting.

Disobedience has consequences. The adults who refused to enter the land would never see it, but God’s plan would continue through their children.

God provides even in judgment. Though the people wandered for forty years, God never abandoned them. He fed them, clothed them, and led them.

As the years passed and the old generation died out, a new generation arose - one that had grown up knowing only God’s provision and protection. They would be the ones to finally enter the land that flows with milk and honey, having learned from their parents’ mistakes to trust completely in the Lord their God.

The wilderness wandering was not just about geography - it was about the journey from slavery to freedom, from fear to faith, from a people recently delivered to a people ready to possess their inheritance.