- Do the Israelites reason with Mosheh?
- What is (are) the only alternative(s) to entering the land that B’nai Yisrael consider?
- And, do they prefer to fight for their land or to return to slavery?
- Were they justified in their preference? Why? Why not?
- Who, now, joins Caleb in arguing for entering the land?
- What is the main argument “to move ahead” that Caleb and Joshua advance?
- How do the people respond to this argument?
- What is to become of the B’nay Yisrael who left Mitzra’yim; why?
- Did the Israelites “break the Brit?”
- But (and) is the Brit still in place?
- Is the Brit a one generation covenant?
- What is the reaction of the Israelites to announcement of the future of their own slave generation?
- Why is this reaction not successful?
- Does the defeat validate that the majority of the surveyors of the land really were right in their opinion?Why? Why not?
- What does TorahRefers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, also called the Five Books of Moses, Pentateuch or the Hebrew equivalent, Humash. This is also called the Written Torah. The term may also refer to teachings that expound on Jewish tradition. Read more teach as being absolutely essential to avoid defeat in war?
- According to this narrative, what is now to happen for the next four decades?
- Does this chapter indicate that those brought up in despair and slavery, even when freed, will yet revert to the slave mentality at times of stress?
- And does the text teach that the absence of will, the lack of courage, can cancel out all encouraging signs?
- Do the rank and file usually look elsewhere to place blame rather than look to themselves?
- According to this chapter, as between freedom and independence with some risk, on the one hand, versus the security of chains and survival on the other, will the slave mentality prefer the latter?
- According to Numbers 14:8 those who are courageous will call upon the new or the old? Note: Is the promise of the Brit (yet to be fulfilled and therefore new) the argument of those who do not yield to the slave mentality?
- Does the rank and file, which can quickly become a mob, want to be contradicted or, if contradicted, will it seek to destroy those who would reason with it?
- While text has taught that the consequences of cowardice and rebellion against the Brit can be overlooked again, when the evidence is that all of this repeated instruction was meaningless, what will eventuate?
- Does this chapter teach that “people will usually get what they ask for” (deserve)?
- If the Brit will remain in place, will its fulfillment be with the slave population or for those who are born and grow up as free men?
- Does the text teach that it is not always possible to change your mind at a later time – it can be too late?
- And does the text teach that action denuded of purpose and contravening what is absolutely certain is not courage but foolhardiness?
- Since the new generation will enter the land, is the text asserting that lack of courage and vacillation are not hereditary—each generation has a new opportunity and the children need not always imitate their parents, given opportunities and living in different circumstances, they can be other than their antecedents?
