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When the sovereign God seems to be surprised, part 3

When the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land from Kadesh-barnea, we read in Numbers 14:11, 12,

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? ¹² I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

Here God was offended with Israel and acted like He was taken by surprise at Israel’s rebellion and lack of faith. Could He indeed have dispossessed them and started over with Moses and his family? Yes, of course. All things are possible with God. Yet the Kingdom would have been delayed for centuries until Moses’ family grew into enough people to constitute a nation.

On the other hand, it seems to me that an omniscient God Alef-Tav would have foreknown this problem and would have prepared Plan B ahead of time. However, if Plan B was about starting over with Moses as the new Abraham (so to speak), the timing would have been quite different. After all, the people’s decision at Kadesh-barnea occurred on the 50^th Jubilee from Adam at the beginning of the year 2450 (from Adam). It “was the time of the first ripe grapes” (Numbers 13:20) in September.

Jubilee and the Day of Atonement

To this day the Jews celebrate the ten “Days of Awe” from the feast of Trumpets to the Day of Atonement, but some also celebrate the previous month of 30 days along with it. This was a total of 40 days, ending on the Day of Atonement, and this was to commemorate the 40 days in which the 12 spies searched the land (Numbers 13:25).

There was no such thing as a Day of Atonement prior to this time. Their calendar was measured in rest years and Jubilees, and this particular day was the 50^th Jubilee from Adam. At the Jubilee, all dispossessed people were to “return to his own property”—in this case, Canaan. Their refusal is what turned the Jubilee into a Day of Atonement. Instead of rejoicing, they were to “mourn” and repent with fasting.

Therefore, to start over with Moses would have missed the appointed time. Actually, they did indeed miss this Jubilee, and this problem of timing took thousands of years to resolve. That is why the manifestation of the Kingdom has been delayed until our time. In fact, Moses and Joshua themselves were only prophetic types of Christ, so in the bigger picture, neither of them were able to establish the Kingdom in its fullest sense. Hence, Moses died in the wilderness, and Joshua was unable to give “rest” to the Israelites (Hebrews 4:8).

Nonetheless, Moses, as a prophetic type of Christ in His first coming, brought redemption to Israel through the feast of Passover and released them from the house of bondage. Joshua, the Ephraimite, was a prophetic type of Christ in His second coming, leading us into the Kingdom by the calling of Joseph, the birthright holder (1 Chronicles 5:1, 2). Both of these men fulfilled their callings as best they could within the limits of the divine plan.

Hence, their apparent failure should not be held against them, for only Jesus Christ Himself was able to establish the actual Kingdom—and even this takes two comings in a two-step plan.

Moses’ Intercession

Moses’ intercession on behalf of Israel is recorded in Numbers 14:13-16,

¹³ But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it… ¹⁴ and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land… ¹⁵ Now if You slay this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say, ¹⁶ “Because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which He promised them BY OATH, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.”

We see how Moses reminded God of His New Covenant oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If the rebellious will of man were truly capable of stopping God from fulfilling His oath, then God should not have taken such an oath. We know, however, that God takes no oath unless He knows He is able to fulfill it. His oaths, vows, and promises are all based upon His own capability, and He cannot simply blame the rebellious will of men for failing to keep His word.

Moses reminded God of His oath and asked, “If you do this, what will the nations say? Your reputation for strength and power is on the line.” These were valid questions, because if God could not fulfill His promise, how could we know about any other promise that He might make? It would, in fact, invalidate the New Covenant.

Surely, God Alef-Tav knew this. He did not need to be reminded of it. Nonetheless, He pretended to forget in order to elicit a response from Moses. God likes to be reminded of His promises, because it shows that we actually believe He is able to fulfill His word. Moses had learned many things by this time. God’s offer can be seen as a test to show us that Moses understood the New Covenant promises of God. God tests us all, not so that He might be informed, but that we may show the world (and ourselves) what we have learned.

When God seems to be surprised at men’s stupidity and angered by men who violate His will, He speaks from an earthly perspective that is on our level of understanding. This is designed to awaken us to the problem of sin, which is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). Such lessons teach us the seriousness of sin, so that we are prepared to go deeper and learn the divine plan. This, I believe, is why God appears to be surprised at the rebelliousness of men. He acts as though He has forgotten His own plan.

Canaan’s Time of Judgment

When we study the chronology of Scripture, we see once again an apparent conflict between God’s will and His plan. It was God’s will that the Israelites decide to enter the Promised Land when the 12 spies gave their report. However, it was God’s plan that they would NOT enter the land at that time, because the Canaanites’ time of judgment had not yet come.

Their time of judgment had been established when Noah put a curse upon Canaan in Genesis 9:25. This put Canaan on Cursed Time, which is actually a grace period to give him and his descendants an opportunity to repent and thereby be restored to Blessed Time. Cursed Time is a cycle of 414 years, as I showed in my book, Secrets of Time. It is one of many examples found in the Bible and in history itself.

In this case, for reasons I will not show here, Canaan was given two such cycles for a total of 828 years. Their grace period ended 2488 years from Adam, the year that Joshua led Israel across the Jordan to displace the Canaanites. But this was 38 years after the 12 spies had given their report at Kadesh-barnea (Deuteronomy 2:14).

We see, then, that God’s will was for Israel to enter the land when the 12 spies gave their report, but it was God’s plan for them to do so 38 years later. If Israel had agreed with Caleb and Joshua and if they had entered the land from the south at the 50^th Jubilee from Adam, they would have brought judgment upon the Canaanites 38 years before their grace period expired.

Did God Alef-Tav know this? Yes, of course. He well knows both His will and His plan. So when He became angry with the rebellious Israelites for their lack of faith, and when He suggested starting all over with Moses and his household, we must look at the situation with this in mind. If we have the mind of God Alef-Tav, we will discover hidden principles about His nature and character that most people have missed.