By Robin Sam
ISRAEL sending out spies to check out the land of Canaan happened 1490 years before Christ. The time setting is only to give the readers a perspective of how far into history the event happened. The spy mission was not a good idea. The majority report was negative. Only Caleb and Joshua were in favor of going into Canaan to possess the land – but then they looked like two eager beavers who were willing to bite more than they could chew.
Towards the end of his life, in Deuteronomy 1, Moses recalled the ill-fated decision and its repercussions. Several years later, the psalmist would also look back at Jewish history in the 95th psalm to say that the Lord was grieved with that generation for 40 years! Think about it for a moment! One foolhardy  decision that led to the people grieving God for 40 long years! That’s how long God took to transform Moses, a Hebrew murderer, into a man with whom God spoke face to face, even plainly. Today, 40 years is half the lifespan of an average man and woman (Psalm 90:10). Forty years of wilderness. Forty years of purposeless wandering. Forty years of unattainable goals. Forty years of grieving God! When we shut our ears to God’s voice and become stubborn in our ways, God lets us walk in our own counsel (Psalm 81:12). Those who were called to walk by faith decided walking by sight was a better idea.
It could have been different. They could have skipped into the Promised Land in 40 days if only they had listened to the voice of Caleb. Although Numbers 13:1-2 say that it was God who asked Moses to send spies into Canaan, Deuteronomy 1:22 says it was the people’s idea. Spying out the land that was selected by God for them before the foundations of the earth was an act of unbelief. ‘..whatever is not from faith is sin’, says Romans 14:23.
God had told them to go and possess the land that was set before them (Deut. 1:21), but the people were in no mood to take God at His word. So much so that even the normally mild-mannered Moses gave them a dressing down. ‘… in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Yet, for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day’ (Deut. 1:31-33). ‘Then they despised the pleasant land; They did not believe His word, but complained in their tents, and did not heed the voice of the Lord’ (Psalm 106:29).
Caleb belonged to the tribe of Judah, the leading tribe in the kingdom of Judah. The meaning of the Hebrew name Caleb is dog. In other words, Caleb personified dog-like loyalty and faithfulness to God, his Master. It was not as if Caleb was blind to the stature of the sons of Anak. They were giants, no doubt. But then there was no comparison between the Anakites and the Israelites. In Numbers 14:9, Caleb and Joshua pointed out the fundamental difference between God’s chosen people and the Anakites. ‘…their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us; fear them not.’
That’s the power of having a different spirit. It sees the unseen. It trusts the unseen God whose invisible hands does visible signs and wonders. It is willing to wager on God and His promises.
In Numbers 14:24 we hear God say this about Caleb: ‘ But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.’
Robin Sam is a preacher, Bible teacher and missions worker. He works in Messenger Missions, a Gospel proclaiming ministry and edits The Christian Messenger magazine.
