Numbers 33 reads like a travelog. Don’t you wish there was a movie? Or at least a few selfies?
Imagine two or three million people—newborn babies, excited children, old folks, their cows and sheep, and all the baggage—traipsing through a desert. No hotels, restaurants, roads, or signs. God made the sea and river dry, and brought water from a rock. “When Israel went out of Egypt…The sea saw it and fled; Jordan turned back.…the God of Jacob…turned the rock into a pool of water” (Ps 114:1-8). He gave them “the bread of heaven…He also rained meat on them like the dust…In spite of this they still sinned, and did not believe in His wondrous works” (Ps 78:24-32). Moses would later record, “Your clothes…and your sandals have not worn out” (Deut 29:5). None of their deaths could be attributed to merely physical reasons; that whole adult generation died in the desert because of unbelief, complaining, or open rebellion. Skeptics say there is no evidence for the exodus and wilderness wanderings. What did they hope to find? Quail feathers? Petrified manna? Perhaps singe marks where the pillar of fire rested? Tent peg holes? The proof is much more obvious. What nation would tell a story like this of their founding? Of their constant unbelief, their tiresome murmuring, and that they were a terminal generation, all dying short of Canaan? Even Moses, their hero, lost his temper at a crucial moment and so was disqualified from entering. No, the only explanation for this story is that it is true. Moses records 42 stops between Raamses in Egypt and the Plains of Moab. It begins with God destroying Egypt’s idols (Num 33:4) and ends with a command to do the same in Canaan (v 52). That’s still the mission for us: “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21) and “keep yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:21).