And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.
Exodus 33:9-11 (NKJV)
Moses knew God on a personal level, he was face-to-face with God and God spoke to Moses as man speaks to a friend, but Israel only saw what God did, they only saw the miracles of provision, protection, and victory over enemies.
He [God] made known His way [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, and His acts to the children of Israel
Psalm 103:7 AMP
A relationship with someone can either be that we just see what they do, their actions, which is not really a relationship at all. Or we can get to know that person by spending time with them and getting to know their ways, getting to know their character and their intentions behind what they do.
When the Israelites came to Mount Sinai, God invited them up the mountain to meet with the children of Israel and for the children of Israel to meet with Him, but this is what happened;
When they had departed from Rephidim and had come to the Wilderness of Sinai, they encamped there before the mountain.
And as Moses went up to God, and the Lord called him out of the mountain, “Say this to the house of Jacob and tell the Israelites: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself.
“Now, therefore, if you will obey My voice in truth and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own peculiar possession and treasure from among and above all peoples; for all the earth is Mine.
And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation [consecrated, set apart to the worship of God]. These are the words you shall speak to the Israelites.”
So Moses called for the elders of the people and told them all these words which the Lord commanded him.
Exodus 19:2-7 AMP
Moses tells the people this and the people responded…
And all the people answered together, and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.
Exodus 19:8
The people made it clear that they did not want to go up to meet the God who rescued them from slavery, opened the Red Sea that they could walk on dry ground, carrying them on Eagle’s wings; they just wanted to do what he tells them to do. This is slave mentality.
The people did not want relationship with God. They only wanted to do what they were told to do, but to get to know God’s character and His personality, they were not interested.
Moses knew God’s ways, but the people only saw God’s acts
In Psalm 103:7 it says;
You unveiled to Moses your plans and showed Israel’s sons what you could do. (TPT)
He revealed His character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel. (NLT)
He has made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel (NASB 1995)
Psalm 103:7
The Israelites travel through the wilderness and it came time for them to go into the promised land. The book of Numbers chapter 13 documented the account this way:
1Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 2“Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their father’s tribes, every one a leader among them.” 3So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of the Lord, all of the men who were heads of the sons of Israel.
Numbers 13:1-3
Joshua and Caleb were among these 12 men
17When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the Negen; then go up into the hill country. 18See what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many. 19How is the land in which they live? 20How is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? Make an effort to get some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes…
…23Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men, with some of the pomegranates and the figs. 24That place was called the valley of Eschcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.
Numbers 13:17-24
Then the spies came back with this report:
27“We went into the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”
30Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.” 31But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.” 32So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. 33There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
141Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. 2All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” 4So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”
Numbers 13:27-14:4
This event of the children of Israel not being obedient in entering the promised land took place before Moses struck the rock the second time. Moses recounts this event in Deuteronomy chapter 1
20I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country and the Amorites which the Lord our God is about to give us. 21See, the Lord your God has placed the land before you; go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’
22“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may search out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up and the cities which we shall enter.’
Deuteronomy 1:20-22 (NASB 1995) (emphasis is mine)
It is clearly stated by Moses that the children of Israel approached Moses, requesting to spy out the land and bring back word on the “way they should go and the cities that they will enter,” and Moses considered this and liked that idea also. Then Moses continues to recount the event…
1Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 2“Send for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.”
Numbers 13:1-2 (NKJV) (emphasis is mine)
Obviously Moses goes back to the Lord with the request of the people, that he also thought was a good idea. I say this because it is written that the Lord said to Moses, “Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan…”
Was it really God’s plan to send in the spies? God also told Moses to choose a leadership to be the spy party, which had to be the head of each tribe.
They go into the land, and as we read earlier, they came back with a bad report and all of Israel rebelled against the Lord. The only ones that did not rebel were Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb. Moses recounted this rebellion in Deuteronomy chapter 1
25Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought us back a report and said, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.’
26“Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God; 27and you grumbled in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. 28Where can we go up? Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large and fortified to heaven. And besides, we saw the sons of Anakim there.”‘
Deuternomy 1:25-28 (NKJV)
The people took to the report of the spies who were filled with fear, doubt and unbelief, and listened to the spies’ report based on what they saw, forgetting how God had performed miracles in absolutely impossible situations, and lost sight of God’s promises.
Moses noted here that the people grumbled in their tents and they were speaking everything except what was truly on God’s heart. The people did not “know” God. They made assumptions about God and His character and His ways based on what they were seeing and hearing and not what God promised.
But Moses who is a “friend of God”, who knew God’s ways said…
29…’Do not be shocked, nor fear them. 30The Lord your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.’ 32But for all this, you did not trust the Lord your God, 33who goes before you on your way, to seek out a place for you to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go.
Deuteronomy 1:29-33 (NKJV)
Not only was Moses reminding the people of what God had done for them in the past, He was also sharing with the people God’s character that he learned about God from the face-to-face relationship, God speaking to Moses as a man speaks to a friend. Moses said, “you saw how God carried you, just as a man carries his son.” Moses is relaying God’s character and God’s intent behind what He did.
Where was their focus? Was it on God’s promises? Was it on what they saw in the natural? Did they know God’s ways? Yes, they may have been keeping all of His commandments and performing all the sacrifices that God required, out of duty, but when it came to entering the promised land, they did not know God well enough to be able to enter into the promise.
34“Then the Lord heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and took an oath, saying, 35‘Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers, 36except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed the Lord fully.’
Deuteronomy 1:34-36 (NKJV)