And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe:
The saying pleased Moses and he endorsed the people's request to send men ahead to explore the land, taking twelve men, one from each tribe, to search it. The initiative came from the people rather than from God's instruction to advance. He brought their proposal before the Lord and received permission for the twelve to go. The twelve searched the land and brought back its fruit with a report confirming that the land was good. At the very border of the promised land unbelief and murmurings over the discouraging report about its inhabitants led the people to refuse to enter and to rebel against God's command. That course led to disaster, whereas waiting for God's direction would have kept Israel on the safe path.
The chapter explains why the adults of the army that left Egypt were refused entry into the promised land, namely disobedience to His conditional promise, and it must be read carefully with Deuteronomy 28 to see that reason. The verse belongs to the history of failures and victories during the years of wandering and before entry near Jericho that Moses was to repeat as lessons to remember. For those upon whom the ends of the world are come, the chapter shows the Lord's will not to follow their own judgment up to a point and then hold to their own ideas, but to ask whether a thing is the will of the Lord, to view everything in the light of Christ's example, to copy His self-denial and self-sacrifice, to live not to please themselves, and to be molded after His likeness to perfection of character instead of feeble human standards.
The saying pleased Moses and he endorsed the people's request to send men ahead to explore the land, taking twelve men, one from each tribe, to search it. The initiative came from the people rather than from God's instruction to advance. He brought their proposal before the Lord and received permission for the twelve to go. The twelve searched the land and brought back its fruit with a report confirming that the land was good. At the very border of the promised land unbelief and murmurings over the discouraging report about its inhabitants led the people to refuse to enter and to rebel against God's command. That course led to disaster, whereas waiting for God's direction would have kept Israel on the safe path.
The chapter explains why the adults of the army that left Egypt were refused entry into the promised land, namely disobedience to His conditional promise, and it must be read carefully with Deuteronomy 28 to see that reason. The verse belongs to the history of failures and victories during the years of wandering and before entry near Jericho that Moses was to repeat as lessons to remember. For those upon whom the ends of the world are come, the chapter shows the Lord's will not to follow their own judgment up to a point and then hold to their own ideas, but to ask whether a thing is the will of the Lord, to view everything in the light of Christ's example, to copy His self-denial and self-sacrifice, to live not to please themselves, and to be molded after His likeness to perfection of character instead of feeble human standards.