Spying Out The Land..

On the occasions that Israel was seeking to enter the land of promise, they sent out spies before them to spy out what God had before them. The good and faithful spies brought back a report based upon faith that God would give them the land and of the abundance of the land. The wicked spies brought back an evil report filled with there unbelief, in whom God was filled with wrath at there evil hearts of unbelief.

Nu 14:6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
7 And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.
8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
11 ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?
 
FYI The Jewish Commentary, the Mishna, records that the people believed the evil report of the spies and mourned all night in fear. They turned against Moses and the two faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb (the only two from Egypt that entered the Promised Land). Ta'anit 29a says it happened on the ninth of Av.

From the Scriptures

9th:
  • Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and Zedekiah was taken and the city burned.
10th:
  • The temple was burning.
  • Certain of the Jewish elders went to Jeremiah to enquire of the Lord. The Lord responded that He wouldn't be enquired by them while in exile.
This is a list of secular events that happened all on the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av, or the day before or the day after, to the Jews. All these are verifiable in the history books.

  • The Jewish Commentary, the Mishna, records that the people believed the evil report of the spies and mourned all night in fear. They turned against Moses and the two faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb (the only two from Egypt that entered the Promised Land). (Ta'anit 29a says it happened on the 9 of Av, Numbers 14:1-10 just records the curse from the Lord and the revolt against Moses and not the date.) This event started their 40-year wandering in the desert.
  • Destruction of the first temple, 29 July 587 BC (9 Av 3174), actually from seventh of Av to tenth because the fire continued.
  • Destruction of the second temple, 4 Aug 70 AD (9 Av 3830), exactly 656 years to the day since the destruction of the first temple.
  • The Roman army plowed Jerusalem with salt in 25 July 71 AD (9 Av 3831)
  • The destruction of Simeon Bar Kochba's army in 5 Aug 135 AD (9 Av 3895)
  • The First Crusade, declared by Pope Urban II, began when his preaching throughout France, in July 1095 (Av 4855), stirred up the populace. This ignited violence against the Jews and some have deemed this as the first holocaust. Though this evil occurred, the number of Jews killed before the Crusades reaches Jerusalem are not recorded, but accounts added up can lead one to believe that the number could reach five to ten thousand.
  • Edward I of England expelled all of the Jews in 18 July 1290 AD (9 Av 5050)
“Pressured by his barons, the Church and possibly his mother, he announced the expulsion of all the Jews. By November 1, approximately 4,000 had fled, mostly to France. The Jews had to pay their own passage. They were allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to England until 1659. This was the first national expulsion of the Jews. (England was one of the only centralized and national monarchies of that time.)”
  • 10 Av 5066 “1306 July 22, PHILIP THE FAIR (France) Expelled the Jews from his lands after arresting all of them (on the day after the 9th of Av) and confiscating their property. Most Jews went to the next Duchy. Gradually, they were allowed to drift back.”
  • Spain, by the Alhambra Decree, expelled all of the Jews by 31 July 1492. On the 1 August 1492 AD, the day before 9th of Av (9 Av 5252), the Jews who didn’t leave were being round up and forced into Catholicism.
  • World War I: France to Germany and Germany to Russia declared war, 1 August 1914 (9 Av 5674)
  • Russia mobilized for World War I and launched persecutions against the Jews in Eastern Russia three days before 9 Av 5674. Of the population, 13% were Jewish and considered traitors and spies and were taken hostage in order to prevent spying. Finally, in 1915 they were forced to leave Galicia, Austria, and banned Yiddish.
  • On 22 July 1942, the Germans began a systematic liquidation of the Ghetto, deporting Jews to extermination camps at the rate of six to ten thousand per day. Deportation started on 8 Av. Over 64,000 Jews were transported to Treblinka in July. By autumn there were only 40,000 Jews left in Warsaw. Just to top it off, 500 mental patients were killed on this day in Kobierzyn (Poland).
  • Warsaw Ghetto Cleansed - 9 Av 5703. By early 1943, the Jews refused to cooperate with the Germans and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began. Renewed attempts to start deportations were answered with reprisals.
  • From July 16 (8 Av 5754) through July 22, 1994, pieces of an object designated as Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. This is the first collision of two solar system bodies ever to be observed, and the effects of the comet impacts on Jupiter's atmosphere have been simply spectacular and beyond expectations. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 consisted of at least 21 discernable fragments with diameters estimated at up to two kilometers. (9 Av 5754) Signs in the heavens.
 
I want to continue in the thought of "spying out the land" and what that represents according to the New Covenant? There are some interesting scriptures in the book of Hebrews that relate this whole picture from the Old unto the New?

Heb 3:7 ¶ Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
 
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I want to make a point a little off topic, the whole of the book of Hebrews is about this issue "the SIN of unbelief" The whole book makes a conflict between the law and grace and explains that the things in the law was not the substance but that by faith in Christ alone the substance of these types and shadows are ours through promise. Now the "willing sin" of Heb 10 is the sin of unbelief! For the law is not of faith!
 
Makes you think about how much influence all those years in Egyptian slavery had on those of the Exodus. And it explains why God did not want the Israelites to mix with the culture of the people of Canaan. Hence the need to wipe out whole tribes who worshiped idols.
 
Makes you think about how much influence all those years in Egyptian slavery had on those of the Exodus. And it explains why God did not want the Israelites to mix with the culture of the people of Canaan. Hence the need to wipe out whole tribes who worshiped idols.
Yea my hope was to bring this into New Covenant doctrine and teaching at some point, and maybe one could relate these things to the lust of the flesh and the bondage that the sin in the flesh attempts to have over the believer?
 
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