history of Israel

INTRODUCTION

The people of Israel up till date are referred as to be the people after God’s own heart; they are God’s own nation. God made a covenant with them down the generations, starting from their fore-fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The covenant has a basis on circumcision, each part involved in the covenant, both God and the Israelites as entitled or obliged to keep to their own part of the covenant.

            God on his part fulfilled his obligations with regards to the covenant; he brought the people out of Egypt and provided their needs, but the people kept on failing on their own part, but God as a just and merciful Supreme Being kept on forgiving them, but to a point they murmured against God, and out of divine anger the Lord took an oath in his anger and it affected the people of Israel.

            A journey that took them a couple of days to Egypt in the book of Genesis, when Joseph was the governor in Egypt, took them forty years to return back in the book of Deuteronomy and none of the people who started the Journey ended it because the Lord took an oath in his anger that never shall they enter his rest. During the forty years of the journey, the people of Israel wandered around the desert.

            With this as an introduction, I have brought to the fore the concern of this paper: the wandering in the desert. The Lord's anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone. The Lord swore an oath that their children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, suffering for their unfaithfulness, until the last of their bodies lies dead in the wilderness.

THE WANDERING IN THE DESERT

The Lord led the Israelites out of Egypt through the hands of Moses and Aaron; he accompanied them on their journey with a pillar of cloud during the day and abeam of fire during the night. The people passed through deserts, they moved through the desert of Sinai and the desert of Paran. During the journey, the people lived in camps in the desert. Throughout their wandering in the desert, Moses served as a mediator between the people and God. The people of Israel left Egypt to reach the promise land and not to wander around in the desert for forty years.

The formal plan of the Israelites was to go directly from Egypt to Canaan, but all the people grumbled against the Lord.  As a consequence, the Lord said that all the people counted in the census will die in the desert except Caleb and Joshua.  So the people wandered in the desert for 40 years.

In the desert, after a while the Israelites forget God’s goodness to them and complained bitterly against having only manna for their food. God sends them quail, but even this does not stop their grumbling. They started longing for the food they had in Egypt as slaves. The people complained to the hearing of the Lord, when the Lord heard their complaint, his wrath flared up, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed the outskirt of their camp. The people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died. The people called the place Taberah, because that is where the fire of the Lord burned among them.

The people went against the covenant that their ancestor made with God, and the Lord said to Moses, “how long will this people spurn me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them with pestilence and wipe them out. Then I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

THE ROLE OF MOSES IN THE DESERT

Moses was more of a leader and a human intercessor for the people to God, during their murmurs, he prayed to God and God provided for them. During the war against the Amalekites, Moses requests that Joshua should lead the men to fight while he stood on a hill with the rod of God in his hand. The Israelites dominated the fight as long as Moses held the rod up, but if he lets his hand down the Israelites lose the favour of the battle. Because Moses was getting tired, Aaron and Hur had Moses sat on a rock and both of them held up his arm, and the Israelites routed the Amalekites.

When the Israelites came to Sinai, they pitched their camp near the mountain. Moses commanded the people not to touch the mountain. Moses received the Ten Commandments orally (not yet in tablet form) and other moral laws. He then went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders to see the God of Israel. Before Moses went up the mountain to receive the tablets, he told the elders to direct any questions that arose to Aaron or Hur. While Moses receives instruction on the laws on the mountain, the Israelites went to Aaron and asked him to make them a god. Aaron collected the golden jewelries of the people and made them a golden calf as their god.

After leaving Sinai, the Israelites camped in Kadesh. After more complaints from the Israelites, Moses struck the rock twice, and water gushed forth. However, because Moses and Aaron had not shown the Lord's holiness, they were not permitted to enter the land to be given to the Israelites; they took the glory of the Lord thereby telling the people that they are the ones that provide them with water. This was the second occasion Moses struck a rock to bring forth water; however, it appears that both sites were named Meribah after these two incidents.

When the Israelites were preparing to enter Canaan, they decided not to attack the Canaanites head-on in Hebron, a city south of Canaan, because the spies had informed them that the Canaanites were too strong. They flanked Hebron and went Far East, around the Dead Sea. They passed through Edom, Moab and Ammon, which are considered to be descendants of Lot, therefore they were not attacked. However, these people are rivals; they denied the Israelite passage through their territory. Moses led the people through the eastern boarder of Edom. After many of the people had been bitten by serpents and died, Moses made the brass serpent and mounted it on a pole, and if those who were bitten looked at it, they were healed and did not die.

After the forty years wandering in the desert, Moses was told that he will not lead the Israelites to the Promised Land because of his trespass at the waters of Meribah, but he is going to die on its eastern shores. Moses therefore gathered the people of Israel and gave then a parting address. This is taken to make up the biblical book of Deuteronomy.