Numbers
King James Version · 36 chapters · 1288 verses · Old Testament
Forty years of going nowhere
Israel leaves Sinai, sends twelve spies ahead into the land, and believes the ten who say it cannot be done. That refusal costs them forty years, and an entire generation dies in the wilderness. Along the way: rebellion against Moses, the ground opening under Korah, water from a rock, snakes and a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole. There is also Balaam, hired to curse Israel, whose donkey sees more clearly than he does. Two censuses bracket the book, and the difference between them is the whole point: one generation counted out, another counted in.