The punishment that God brought upon Miriam was meant as a lesson of
the severity with which God punishes slander. For Miriam spoke no evil
of Moses in the presence of any one except her brother Aaron. She had
moreover no evil motive, but a kindly intention, wishing only to induce
Moses to resume his conjugal life. She did not even dare to rebuke
Moses to his face, and still, even in spite of her great piety, Miriam
was not spared this heavy punishment. [499] Her experience,
nevertheless, did not awe the wicked man who, shortly after this
incident, made an evil report of the promised land, and by their wicked
tongues stirred up the whole people in rebellion against God, so that
they desired rather to return to Egypt than to enter Palestine. The
punishment that God inflicted upon the spies as well as upon the people
they had seduced was well deserved, for had they not been warned of
slander by Miriam's example, there might still have been some excuse.
In that case they might have been ignorant of the gravity of the sin of
slander, but now they had no excuse to offer. [500]
When Israel approached the boundaries of Palestine, they appeared
before Moses, saying: "We will send men before us, and they shall
search out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up,
and into what cities we shall come." This desire caused God to exclaim:
"What! When you went through a land of deserts and of pits, you had no
desire for scouts, but now that you are about to enter a land full of
good things, now you wish to send out scouts. Not only was the desire
in itself unseemly, but also the way in which they presented their
request to Moses; for instead of approaching as they had been
accustomed, letting the older men be the spokesmen of the younger they
appeared on this occasion without guidance or order, the young crowding
out the old, and these pushing away their leaders. [501] Their bad
conscience after making this request - for they knew that their true
motive was lack of faith in God - caused them to invent all sorts of
pretexts for their plans. They said to Moses: "So long as we are in the
wilderness, the clouds act as scouts for us, for they move before us
and show us the way, but as these will not proceed with us into the
promised land, we want men to search out the land for us." Another plea
that they urged for their desire was this. They said: "The Canaanites
fear an attack from us and therefore hid their treasures. This is the
reason why we want to sent spies there in time, to discover for us
where they are hiding their treasures." They sought in other ways to
give Moses the impression that their one wish was exactly to carry out
the law. They said: "Hast not thou taught us that an idol to which
homage is no longer paid may be used, but otherwise it must be
destroyed? If we now enter Palestine and find idols, we shall not know
which of them were adored by the Canaanites and must be destroyed, and
which of them were no longer adored, so that we might use them."
Finally they said the following to Moses: "Thou, our teacher, hast
taught us that God 'would little by little drive the Canaanites before
us.' If this be so, we must send out spies to find out which cities we
must attack first." [502] Moses allowed himself to be influenced by
their talk, and he also liked the idea of sending out spies, but not
wishing to act arbitrarily he submitted to God the desire of the
people. God answered: "It is not the first time that they disbelieve My
promises. Even in Egypt they ridiculed Me, it is now become a habit
with them, and I know what their motive in sending spies is. If thou
wishest to send spies do so, but do not pretend that I have ordered
thee."
Moses hereupon chose one man from every tribe with the exception of
Levi, and sent these men to spy out the land. These twelve men were the
most distinguished and most pious of their respective tribes, so that
even God gave His assent to the choice of every man among them. [503]
But hardly had these men been appointed to their office when they made
the wicked resolve to bring up an evil report of the land, and dissuade
the people from moving to Palestine. Their motive was a purely personal
one, for they thought to themselves that they would retain their
offices at the head of the tribes so long as they remained in the
wilderness, but would be deprived of them when they entered Palestine.
[504]