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Day 47: Numbers 12–14 · Colossians 2 · Psalm 28 · Commentary · Commentary² · Audio

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• The Bible text is included for reading continuity; it is accurate in substance, aligned with major modern translations, and may be read alongside any Bible you prefer.¹

Special Note about the following Bible text: The following translation uses the Hebrew terms tamé (טָמֵא) and tahor (טָהוֹר) instead of the traditional “unclean” and “clean.” These terms describe ritual status in relation to sanctuary access, not moral fault, shame, or physical dirtiness. A fuller explanation will follow in a dedicated article.

Numbers 12

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite wife he had taken, for he had taken a Cushite wife. They said:

Has Jehovah indeed spoken only by Moses? Has he not spoken by us also?

And Jehovah heard it.

Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.

Suddenly Jehovah said to Moses and to Aaron and to Miriam:

Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.

So the three of them went out. Jehovah came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam. They both came forward.

He said:

Hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I Jehovah make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of Jehovah. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

The anger of Jehovah burned against them, and he departed.

When the cloud moved away from over the tent, Miriam was leprous, white as snow. Aaron turned toward Miriam, and she was leprous.

Aaron said to Moses:

My lord, please do not lay the sin on us in which we have acted foolishly and sinned. Please do not let her be like a stillborn child whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.

Moses cried to Jehovah:

O God, please heal her, please.

Jehovah said to Moses:

If her father had only spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.

So Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out until Miriam was brought in again. After that the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Numbers 13

Jehovah spoke to Moses and said:

Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel. You shall send one man from each tribe of his fathers, every one a leader among them.

Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of Jehovah. All of them were men who were heads of the sons of Israel. These were their names:

From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur.
From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori.
From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh.
From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph.
From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun.
From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu.
From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi.
From the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi.
From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli.
From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael.
From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi.
From the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.

These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses called Hoshea son of Nun Joshua.

Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them:

Go up through the Negev and then into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many. See whether the land they dwell in is good or bad, whether the cities they dwell in are open camps or fortified strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be strong and bring some of the fruit of the land.

Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes.

They went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. They went up into the Negev and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

They came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes. They carried it on a pole between two men. They also took some of the pomegranates and the figs. That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster that the sons of Israel cut down from there.

At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.

They came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. They reported:

We came to the land to which you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. We also saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek dwells in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan.

Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said:

Let us go up at once and take possession of it, for we are well able to overcome it.

But the men who had gone up with him said:

We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.

So they brought to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land they had spied out, saying:

The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw in it are men of great size. There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes.

Numbers 14

All the congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night. All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them:

If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness. Why is Jehovah bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?

They said to one another:

Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel.

Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their garments and said to all the congregation:

The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If Jehovah delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against Jehovah and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection has turned away from them, and Jehovah is with us. Do not fear them.

But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of Jehovah appeared at the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel.

Jehovah said to Moses:

How long will this people despise me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

Moses said to Jehovah:

Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by your power you brought up this people from among them, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Jehovah, are in the midst of this people, that you are seen face to face, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. If you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of your fame will say:

Because Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give them, he slaughtered them in the wilderness.

Now please let the power of Jehovah be great, just as you have spoken, saying:

Jehovah is slow to anger and great in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers on children to the third and the fourth generation.

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.

Jehovah said:

I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not listened to my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. None of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys. Turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.

Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron:

How long shall this evil congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them:

As I live, declares Jehovah, what you have spoken in my hearing I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, all who were counted among you from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me. You shall not enter the land that I swore to make you dwell in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. But your little ones, whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. As for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

Your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall bear your unfaithfulness, until your dead bodies are finished in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my opposition. I, Jehovah, have spoken. Surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered against me. In this wilderness they shall come to an end, and there they shall die.

The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing a bad report about the land, the men who brought the bad report of the land died by a plague before Jehovah. But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive out of those who went to spy out the land.

Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. They rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the hill country, saying:

Here we are. We will go up to the place that Jehovah has spoken of, for we have sinned.

But Moses said:

Why are you now transgressing the command of Jehovah? This will not succeed. Do not go up, for Jehovah is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. The Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword, because you have turned back from following Jehovah. Jehovah will not be with you.

But they presumed to go up to the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of Jehovah nor Moses departed from the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that hill country came down and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah.

Colossians 2

I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen my face in person, so that their hearts may be encouraged, being joined together in love and reaching all the riches of full understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say this so that no one may deceive you with persuasive arguments. Even though I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught, overflowing with thanksgiving.

See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been brought to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not done by hands, in the stripping away of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, forgiving us all our offenses. He erased the record of debt that stood against us with its demands. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. Having disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Therefore let no one judge you in matters of food or drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or sabbath days. These are a shadow of things to come, but the reality belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and the worship of angels, dwelling on visions, inflated without cause by a fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and joined together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that comes from God.

If you died with Christ to the elemental principles of the world, why do you submit to regulations as if you were still living in the world: “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”? All these things are destined to perish with use, according to human commands and teachings. These rules have an appearance of wisdom in self-made religion, self-abasement, and harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value against the excesses of the flesh.

Psalm 28

To you, Lord, I call,
my rock.
Do not be silent toward me.
If you remain silent toward me,
I will become like those who go down to the pit.

Hear the sound of my pleas for mercy
when I cry out to you for help,
when I lift up my hands
toward your holy inner sanctuary.

Do not drag me away with the wicked,
with those who do evil,
who speak peace with their neighbors
while harm is in their hearts.

Give to them according to their deeds,
according to the evil of their actions.
Give to them according to the work of their hands;
return to them what they deserve.

Because they do not regard the works of the Lord
or the work of his hands,
he will tear them down
and will not build them up.

Blessed be the Lord,
for he has heard the sound of my pleas for mercy.

The Lord is my strength and my shield.
In him my heart trusts, and I am helped.
My heart rejoices,
and with my song I give thanks to him.

The Lord is strength for his people;
he is a refuge of rescue for his anointed.

Save your people and bless your inheritance.
Shepherd them and carry them forever.

Commentary - Day 47

Numbers 12–14 · Colossians 2 · Psalm 28

Numbers 12 opens with speech against Moses. “Has Jehovah indeed spoken only by Moses?” The question is spoken in his absence. The answer is spoken at the tent of meeting. The cloud descends. Aaron and Miriam are called forward. Moses is named “faithful in all my house.” With him Jehovah speaks “face to face, clearly and not in riddles.” Miriam is struck and shut outside the camp seven days. The people do not set out until she is brought in again. The camp’s movement waits on her restoration.

Numbers 13 turns toward the land that is “being given.” Leaders are named, one from each tribe. The land is described with fruit in hand: a cluster of grapes carried between two men, pomegranates, figs. “It truly flows with milk and honey.” The report then divides. Cities are fortified. Descendants of Anak are there. Caleb says, “We are well able.” Others say, “We are not able.” “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes.”

Numbers 14 gives the night to weeping. The people speak of Egypt and of appointing another leader. Joshua and Caleb tear their garments. “Do not rebel.” “Do not fear.” The congregation speaks of stoning them. The glory appears. Judgment is spoken: the generation counted from twenty years and upward will fall in the wilderness. “A year for each day.” Forty days become forty years. Caleb is named again, “a different spirit.” Pardon is spoken, yet entry is withheld. The people rise early to go up without the ark and without Moses. They are struck down. The command and the presence are not assumed.

Colossians 2 speaks of another kind of firmness. Hearts encouraged, joined in love, reaching “the riches of full understanding.” In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” The warning is against captivity through persuasion, through philosophy, through human tradition. “In him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” The record of debt is erased. Rulers and authorities are disarmed. The language names fullness, stripping away, burial and rising, triumph.

Then comes restraint in another register: “Let no one judge you in matters of food or drink.” “Let no one disqualify you.” “Do not submit to regulations.” These commands are described as shadow and as human teaching. They have “an appearance of wisdom,” yet “no value against the excesses of the flesh.” The head is named as the source from whom the whole body grows.

Psalm 28 speaks from the threshold of silence. “Do not be silent toward me.” Hands are lifted toward the inner sanctuary. The plea asks not to be dragged away with those who speak peace while harboring harm. The psalm ends with trust: “The Lord is my strength and my shield.” “Shepherd them and carry them forever.”

Numbers records speech against a servant and speech against a land. It records fear named as sight: grasshoppers in our own eyes. It records pardon and delay, presence and absence, ark remaining while presumption advances. Colossians names fullness dwelling bodily and warns against teachings that appear severe yet lack power. Psalm 28 lifts hands toward the sanctuary and asks to be heard.

Across these texts, authority is questioned, land is evaluated, regulations are weighed, silence is feared. The cloud descends. The ark remains. The head is held fast. The heart trusts. The people wait, move, or fall according to the command that is heard.

Day 47 records challenge and refusal. Miriam and Aaron question Moses; the cloud descends, and Miriam waits outside the camp seven days. The spies return with fruit and fear. Caleb says, “We are able.” Others say, “We are not.” Forty days become forty years. The people attempt to go up without the ark and are struck down.

Colossians 2 speaks of fullness dwelling bodily in Christ, of debt erased and rulers disarmed. It warns against human regulations that appear wise yet lack power. Psalm 28 lifts hands toward the sanctuary, asking not for silence but for strength and shepherding. Presence, command, and firmness determine whether the people stand, wait, or fall.

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