If God is so loving, so patient and so kind, how does this passage make sense? First, we need to remember the context. The people have come out of Egypt, to the very border of the Promised Land. They have sent twelve spies to scout out the land, and have just heard their report: two of them pointed out the land’s many blessings and urged the people to press forward, claiming God’s promise to deliver it into their hands. But the other ten said that the cities of the land were too strong to capture, and that giants lived there, who were too mighty to overcome. Upon hearing this report, the whole congregation desired to choose another leader to take them back to Egypt.

What was the Lord’s reaction to this rebellion? He asked Moses in verses 11 and 12, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” In short, it is God’s perfect justice that is on display here, and we cannot doubt that the people deserved exactly what God said He would do to them.

There was also a test for Moses here – a test of his own pride, a temptation to take Abraham’s place in history. But unlike the people, Moses passed the test, precisely by keeping God’s perfect law of love. In verses 13 through 16, he appeals to God’s own reputation, desiring that God be glorified even among the unbelieving nations in the area. And at the end of the passage, he asks God to forgive the people, just as He had done so many times before. In other words, Moses’ love for God and for the people outweighed any possible ambition he might have had.

And in this way, Moses serves as a type, a foreshadowing of the greater ministry Jesus would perform for all of us. For Jesus could have allowed God the Father to give all us sinners the punishment we so richly deserve. He could have kept God’s blessings for Himself. But instead, He laid down His life precisely so He could plead His own blood on our behalf, absorbing the consequences of our sin so that God’s justice might be satisfied and so that we might be forgiven.

Surely a God Who would go to such lengths to love us and forgive us is worth following, even if it means attacking fortified cities and confronting huge giants. For how can we doubt that He will keep His promises to bless us?

Numbers 14:13-20 (ESV)

13 But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them,
14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people. For you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say,
16 ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’
17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,
18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
20 Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word.