Here's a trivia question for you: How long did Moses lead the Israelites in the wilderness? The answer is about six months. The remainder of the time he was just as lost as the rest of them!
Of course, the real answer is 40 years, the time it took the generation that came out of Egypt and rebelled against the Lord to pass away so that the next generation could be the ones to enter the Promised Land. Numbers 33 presents a recap of the Israelites' journey by stages through the wilderness to Canaan. As you can see, it was quite a bit of wandering!
To us, these long names may be almost indecipherable and sound irrelevant. We may even wonder why this list was written down in the first place and how it made it into the Bible. But don't we do the same thing when we recall the stages of our lives, especially our spiritual journeys? We may remember how we started to know the Lord, who introduced us to Jesus, who invited us to church for the first time, who the pastor was who brought us into church membership, the first mission trip that we went on or the types of Christian service that we got involved in. We probably recall where we were confirmed, or married, or witnessed the funerals of loved ones. These left impressions and spiritual markers along the way, just as the travels in the wilderness did for God's people.
If you were to make a list or map of your spiritual journey, what would it look like?
The look back ends with a look ahead. God tells the people what is expected of them when they enter Canaan. They are to drive out the current inhabitants and destroy all the vestiges of their pagan worship. The land will be assigned by lot and become their inheritance. But if they are not faithful to do what God says concerning the prior inhabitants of the land, they will become snares and barbs to the Israelites. God ends this section with an ominous warning: "I will do to you as I thought to do to them" (vs. 56).
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