2:14-18 - Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. The Lord's hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp.
Now when the last of these fighting men among the people had died, the Lord said to me, "Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar. When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot."
Nothing more is said about Israel's transit through the land of Moab; v18 slides silently into Ammon in v19. Set at the center—and serving as the turning point—of this retrospective of the Israelites' journey through the lands denied to them is this recounting of the death of the last of GenA on the plains of Moab. It is brief, but it is also highly charged. Three times GenA's elimination is mentioned, using different though resonant, forms of the same verb—tom, tummam, and tammu—which essentially means 'complete,' 'total.' That generation was totaled (as we might speak of a car wrecked beyond repair in an accident) by the Lord! Each turn of this repetition is also qualified by the location of their eradication: "from the midst of (miqqereb) of the camp/people" (v14, 15, 16). Then set at the core of this repetition is a categorical assertion—stressed by the assonance of the Hebrew words wegam, bam, hummam, and tummam—that their elimination was the result of the deliberate act by Yahweh:1
until all that generation of fighting men had perished completely (tom) from the midst of the camp, as Yahweh had sworn to them, v14.
Yes (wegam), Yahweh's hand was upon them (bam) to confound them (hummam) until he had completely eliminated them (tummam) from the midst of the camp, v15.
when all the fighting men had perished completely (tammu) in death from the midst of the people . . . v16.
There is also the tragic irony in the identification of those destroyed as "fighting men" (literally, "men of war," 'anshe hammilchama). As we have already seen, they would indeed have been "fighting men" had they obeyed the initial charge by Yahweh to take on the Amorites at Kadesh Barnea. They did not. And when, eventually, they did dare to put on their weapons of war (kele milchama, 1:41b) it was in defiance of Yahweh's explicit command not to. Then Yahweh had warned them he would "not be in their midst" (1:42). Now, in fulfilment of his oath that not a single member of that generation would see the Promised Land, Yahweh eliminates them "from the midst of the camp/people" (v14, 15). In their rebellion they had accused Yahweh of intending to deliver them into the hands of the Amorites to destroy them (1:27). Now, using language normally reserved for Yahweh's enemies, it is Yahweh's hand that is stretched out upon them to "total" them. Yahweh had sworn (1:34), so now he exacts his promise. It is difficult to imagine how more intensely their elimination can be expressed than as it is articulated here. In the end no real fighting would take place (2:24ff) until everyone—notice the twice repeated "all" (v14, 16)—of these "fighting men" had died.
This purging process had taken the entire span of their journey from Kadesh Barnea to the crossing of the Zered, a delay of thirty-eight years. As God had foretold to Abraham that his descendants would have to wait four generations before they may return to take possession of the land "because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure" (Gen 15:16), so here GenB is delayed thirty-eight years until the sin of their fathers have reached the full measure of God's sworn oath regarding them. Because we all live lives locked into others', disappointments and delays of blessings are not always the result of God's displeasure with us. Remember how Abel became the first person to die not because he offended God but because he brought an offering pleasing to Him? Sometimes blessings are delayed—in Abel's case, denied to him—because God needs our time and space (and, in Abel's case and for some of us, life) to resolve his business with others. While those years of delay may often accomplish little—thirty-eight years in the case of GenB—they were not wasted in the waiting if that waiting is stayed in God.2 In this way, Moab thus becomes both the location of judgment but also of the grace of new beginning.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, rev., 2021