The Twelve Spies sent to scout out the land of Canaan came back laden with grapes like these (also from Israel), as well as figs and pomegranates; but they also reported that the Canaanites were a warrior people with well-defended cities, and instead of trusting that God would go before them and defeat their enemies, they feared to grasp their inheritance. For that, the whole people was doomed to remain a little longer in the wilderness.
THE Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness between Egypt and their Promised land, and they were years of trouble. A plague of venomous snakes invaded their camp, but Moses raised up a brazen serpent on a pole, and those who looked at it were cured of snakebite.*
They were assailed by the people of Amalek, and prevailed only so long as Moses kept his hands in the air. Whenever through weariness he lowered them, the Amalekites started to rally.*
As they drew nearer to Canaan, the Israelites encountered equally hostile kings in Moab and Edom, and worse was feared in the Land of Promise itself. “Surely it floweth with milk and honey” admitted the spies that Moses sent out, “nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled.”*
Two of the twelve spies, Caleb and Joshua, scolded the rest for their timidity, but the damage was done. It would be many years more before God judged his people had the courage to grasp their inheritance.
See Numbers 21:6-9. The episode is picked up by Jesus, who refers it to himself on his cross in John 3:14-15: the sight of the cross acts like an antidote to the bite of the serpent of Eden. The brazen serpent is another example of Old Testament image-making cited by supporters of sacred art during The Restoration of the Icons. While it was used for its proper purpose, it was divinely blessed; after it acquired its own name and cult, as the god Nehushtan, King Hezekiah had it destroyed: see 1 Kings 18:4.
See Numbers 13:17-33. The spies brought back grapes, figs and pomegranates from the Valley of Eshcol, generally thought to be near Hebron, some sixteen miles south of Jerusalem.
See Exodus 17:8-16.
