I’m a little behind, but wanted to get this posted before I start the new Parsha tomorrow. I will not cover the entire Torah portion, just the things that screamed in Shelach-Lecha from a Messianic Perspective.
Different Translation Each Year
In case you haven’t read my other posts, I want to remind you that I read the Torah Cycle from a different translation each year. This year is one that many have given me grief over… but I love it. NOT because I think it is a fabulous translation, but because it forces me to research the words and study the verse from other versions because it sometimes is very different. Which one am I using? The Message! After having read the Torah several times, I needed something to help me not memorize it and therefore just skim it when I read each year… this has been such a great way to read the Torah Cycle.
Torah Portion Thoughts
Numbers 13:1-2 God spoke to Moses:
“Send men to scout out the country of Canaan that I am giving to the People of Israel. Send one man from each ancestral tribe, each one a tried-and-true leader in the tribe.”
Tried and true leader…
Wow. So these were not just any member of the community, but renown leaders.
Here is the entry from Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon
It really puts a whole new light on these men who came back with misleading reports about Canaan doesn’t it? Remember this is the very reason I’m reading from The Message this year… Researching words or phrases that scream out at me. Bringing Understanding and clarity. 
Numbers 13:31-33
But the others said, “We can’t attack those people; they’re way stronger than we are.” They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, “We scouted out the land from one end to the other—it’s a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers.”
Bad Report = slander and defamation.
So they essentially slandered and defamed the Promised Land. I’ve always thought of those terms in relation to a person… as in ruining their reputation. I like how The Message used “scary rumors”.
I’m not sure if you know this… but every single year I fall in love with the version I’m reading from. Any translation that brings me clarity and understanding is loved!
Do you ever look up what a name means when reading Scripture? Names are important in the Bible (remember several name changes)
I love the meaning of Caleb. If you recall, God singles Caleb out in Numbers 14:24
But my servant Caleb—this is a different story. He has a different spirit; he follows me passionately. I’ll bring him into the land that he scouted and his children will inherit it.
Gesenius says Caleb means Dog or Rabid. Rabid seems to me to be very fitting and to mean passionate about the Lord!
Every single time I read Numbers 14, I’m convicted over and over again about grumbling and murmuring … I think it speaks to us not being satisfied and not being thankful for what we have.
Numbers 14:26-30
God spoke to Moses and Aaron: “How long is this going to go on, all this grumbling against me by this evil-infested community? I’ve had my fill of complaints from these grumbling Israelites. Tell them, As I live—God’s decree—here’s what I’m going to do: Your corpses are going to litter the wilderness—every one of you twenty years and older who was counted in the census, this whole generation of grumblers and grousers. Not one of you will enter the land and make your home there, the firmly and solemnly promised land, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
And if that doesn’t convict you, this will… Whoring and unfaithfulness….
Numbers 14:31-34
“Your children, the very ones that you said would be taken for plunder, I’ll bring in to enjoy the land you rejected while your corpses will be rotting in the wilderness. These children of yours will live as shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, living with the fallout of your whoring unfaithfulness until the last of your generation lies a corpse in the wilderness. You scouted out the land for forty days; your punishment will be a year for each day, a forty-year sentence to serve for your sins—a long schooling in my displeasure.
Unfaithfulness is Strongs H2184… see what Gesenius’ Lexicon says it means!
Unintentional sin is still sin.
Numbers 15:22-26
“But if you should get off the beaten track and not keep the commands which God spoke to Moses, any of the things that God commanded you under the authority of Moses from the time that God first commanded you right up to this present time, and if it happened more or less by mistake, with the congregation unaware of it, then the whole congregation is to sacrifice one young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a pleasing fragrance to God, accompanied by its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering as stipulated in the rules, and a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering. The priest is to atone for the entire community of the People of Israel and they will stand forgiven. The sin was not deliberate, and they offered to God the Fire-Gift and Absolution-Offering for their inadvertence. The whole community of Israel including the foreigners living there will be absolved, because everyone was involved in the error.
And this applies to all of us. Numbers 15:29
“The same standard holds for everyone who sins by mistake; the native-born Israelites and the foreigners go by the same rules.
HERE is what it means to blaspheme God. Intentional Sin.
Numbers 15:30-31
“But the person, native or foreigner, who sins defiantly, deliberately blaspheming God, must be cut off from his people: He has despised God’s word, he has violated God’s command; that person must be kicked out of the community, ostracized, left alone in his wrongdoing.”
I pray you are getting something out of my posts. I feel like they are random ramblings… and maybe they are. But maybe they will get you into His Word if for no other reason but to be a Berean and study it for yourself.
Shabbat Shalom y’all!