The spies were forty days absent, passing through the whole country of Canaan, from the wilderness of Zin to Hamath. They gathered some fruit in the valley of Eshcol, figs, pomegranates and grapes; and they hung a bunch of the grapes across a pole, which two men carried between them.

As soon as the spies returned, the people gathered together to hear their report. They showed the fruit; but ten of the spies murmured and said, "We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and, moreover, we saw the children of Anak* there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south; and the Hittites, and Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan."

"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it."

"But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we."

And they gave an evil report of the land, declaring "it was a land that eat up the inhabitants thereof;" by which they meant that the soil was so poor, that it did not produce food sufficient for

The children of Anak were men of unusual stature, and are elsewhere styled giants.

those who lived there: they also declared that all the people they saw were men of great stature, giants, compared with whom they were in their own sight as grasshoppers: by these false accounts (for the country was remarkable for its fertility) they succeeded in terrifying the assembled people, and made them more afraid of the power of men, than of God.

All that night, the camp of the Israelites was filled with lamentation and weeping, and in the morning they broke forth into murmurs and discontents. "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt," they exclaimed, "Would that we had died in the wilderness." ،، Wherefore

hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt."

"Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel." And Joshua and Caleb rent their clothes, and spake unto the people, saying, "the land which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. 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. 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."

FORBIDDEN TO ENTER THE PROMISED LAND. 173

But the people would not hearken to Joshua and Caleb; they "bade stone them with stones;" when, at that instant, "the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel."

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? I will smite them with a pestilence, and disinherit them; and will make of thee a nation, greater and mightier than they.

Nevertheless, when Moses again pleaded for the people, God did not destroy them; "And the Lord said, I have pardoned, according to thy word."

But, as a punishment for their so often repeated murmurings, the Israelites were forbidden to enter the Promised Land: they were commanded to turn back into the wilderness, there to wander forty years, a year for every day which the spies. had been in Canaan; and it was declared that, during this time, every man above twenty years of age should die, excepting Joshua and Caleb. The ten unfaithful spies were suddenly destroyed by a plague," and they died before the Lord."

When the people heard their sentence, they mourned greatly; but they mourned for the disappointment of their hopes of entering the Promised Land, and not for having sinned against God; for early the following morning,

they again assembled tumultuously, and declared to Moses that they would go up into the land which the Lord had promised them.

"And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord? But it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among you that ye be not smitten before your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you."

The people, however, persisted in going up: but Moses remained in the camp, with the Ark of the covenant, and the power of Jehovah went not with the disobedient Israelites: the people were defeated and driven back by the Canaanites, and many of them were slain: they then returned to their obedience, and commenced their reluctant march back to the desert.

The death of the Sabbath-breaker occurred about this time.

"And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks, brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done with him."

"And the LORD said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp."

All the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REBELLION OF KORAH, DATHAN AND ABIRAM.

THE discontent of the Israelites was not yet entirely subdued; and soon after leaving Kadesh Barnea, fresh murmurings broke out against Moses and Aaron. Korah, of the tribe of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram of the tribe of Reuben, complained that Moses and Aaron had usurped the supreme command. This was not true; since it was by the express appointment of God, that Moses was the leader, and Aaron the High Priest of the nation; but when men give way to jealous and angry feelings, they seldom speak or think the truth.

Korah, who was a Levite, but not of Aaron's family, and therefore not a priest,* laid claim to the priesthood; Dathan and Abiram, being descended from Reuben, the eldest of Jacob's sons, desired to have equal authority with Moses in the government.†

The Priests alone offered the sacrifices.

+ Reuben had been disinherited of his birthright by Jacob his father. "Unstable as water thou shalt not excel,"