Welcome and thank you for taking a bible break to test your knowledge of God's word. This week's question:

The Israelites, named after Jacob, the grandson of Abraham through whom the promise to Christ is promised in Galatians 3:16, brought out of bondage from Egypt by the glory of the Lord, led by a man named Moses when he was eighty years old. They start on a journey that should take about 2 months, that turns into an exodus of forty years! The question that comes to mind is: Why?

Miracles and wonders continue along the journey from water that flows from a rock to people that are healed from serpent bites by just looking at a brass serpent on a pole.

Exodus 34:10 Then God said, "Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before

all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth

now among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you will live will see the

working of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform."

The people are guided by cloud of God that went before them and let them know when to break camp and journey again:

Exodus 40:34-38 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of

the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because

the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout

all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of

Israel would set out; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the

day when it was taken up. For throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the Lord was

on the tabernacle by day, and their was a pillar of fire in it by night, in the sight of all

the house of Israel.

The people grumbled many times, from of the lack of water, the desert conditions. to the type of food that the Lord provided:

Numbers 11:4-6 The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also

the sons of Israel wept again and said, "who will give us meat to eat? We remember the

fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and

the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all except

his manna."

Soon, in Numbers chapter 13 the Lord requests Moses to send spies into the land of Canaan, one from each tribe, twelve in all. They spied out the land for forty days and reported back that the land did indeed flow with milk and honey, even bringing back a large grape cluster that hung on a pole between two men. But they gave a bad report for the land was inhabited by the descendants of the Anak, or giants, that dwarfed them so they looked like grasshoppers, and according to the bed described in Deuteronomy 3:11 they may have stood twelve feet high!

Also in Deuteronomy 4:38 they indeed were greater and mightier. Only Caleb and Joshuaremembered that God was on their side, and felt they indeed could take the land. In Numbers chapter 14 the people want to return to Egypt rather than make their wives plunder when they are killed in battle. The Lord's anger burns because of their desire to return and wants to lay them low as they stand:

Numbers 14:11-12 Then the Lord said to Moses, "How long will this people

spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs that I have

performed in their midst? I will smite them with a pestilence and dispossess them, and I

will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they."

But Moses responds to their defense that the Egyptians would say that the Lord could not bring them into the land which He promised so He slaughtered them in the wilderness, and then asks that the Lord pardon the people which He does, but with a sentence, to all over 20 years except Caleb and Joshua:

Numbers 15:33:34 Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the

wilderness, and they shall suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the

wilderness. According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for

every day you shall bear your guilt as year, even forty years, and you will know my

opposition.

So there we have the answer to our question, because of their unbelief of being able to take the promised land for the forty days the spies spent, one year for each, 40 years! Let us believe the Lord in what is promised, even eternal life to them that hold fast to His word to the end.