A peaceful transfer of power is worthless if the former leaders and the new leaders ignore God’s commandments. The only leaders who are worth following are those who inquire of God and lead the way He wants. That’s a key lesson of the Torah reading פינחס Pinchas (“Phinehas,” Numbers 25:10-30:1).
When we look for leaders, we need to see if they have the humility of Moses and Jeremiah or if they have the arrogance of the rebellious leaders who Moses and Jeremiah confronted.
Yeshua said three times that He would “take what is Mine” referring to His Spirit and give it to the Eleven and their spiritual heirs, which is us. One of the Spirit’s main duties is to help us recall what we have studied so we can recall it when it is time to give a testimony of what we know to be true. But this learning is not just for our comfort. It’s so we can bring truth and comfort to the world.
The “bad report” brought by the spies about the land God promised to give Israel was a dishonest report. Yet because the majority of the spies were willing to spread lies, the honest report of the two faithful spies was drowned out. The leaders of Israel believed the false report so completely that they were planning an insurrection to have Moses and Aaron stoned and then appoint a “leader” who would return them to Mitsraim (Egypt).
Numbers 14 is an example of democracy gone wrong. It also shows us God’s great patience with us in our lack of trust. We would not have tolerated the 10 times of grumbling that God tolerated from ancient Israel during the journey from Mitsraim. Yet He had to enact discipline too.
The territory of Sin — a place name, not the term for moral malady — that Israel transversed after leaving Mitsraim (Egypt) was a very large place. It’s in the area where Mt. Sinai is located.
Yet, Yisra’el did sin at Rephadim, so it was called Massah and Meribah. But God still gave the people water from the rock — “living water” preceded law at Sinai — and defeated Amalek.
Numbers 12 shows us the consequences of Miriam and Aaron’s jealously of God’s special relationship with Moses. Since they could not openly complained about God’s special treatment of Moses, they struck out against Moses’s by attacking his Cushite wife. Numbers 13 shows us the story of the first spies who went out into the land of Israel to scout out the land. God told Moses to call out one leader from each tribe to be the spies of the land.