So they spread discouraging reports among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants. And all the people we saw there are huge men, veritable giants [the Anakim were a race of giants]; we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”

Good morning, Digital Neighbors!

          After months of travelling and countless signs of Divine presence and deliverance the Israelites arrive at the edge of the Promised Land ready to enter it only to surrender to fear and discouragement once again.  The Children of Abrahman had seen countless signs in Egypt and along the route to the Promised Land that God was with them. One might wonder how they could be so dense and to think after all these trials and signs that surely, they now trust God. 

          It is not easy to overcome 400 years of silence from God, it is not easy to overcome generational slavery with its certainty and security.  Better the devil you know than the one you don’t as the expression goes. Slavery is a miserable lot in life, but it did come with some certainty that the Israelites had come to accept. When God breaks His silence with Israel, He does so dramatically in all the signs and wonders He worked in Egypt. The final sign of Passover is a declaration of God that the future is in His hands. The death of the firstborn of Egypt is an act against their future and a sign of protection to Israel. Israel has a future with God, Egypt does not. To oppose God is to risk His wrath, to trust God is to find the path to freedom.