Today's Scripture Reading (January 24, 2025): Numbers 14
Alexander the Great was the son of Philip II, King of Macedonia. When Alexander was only twenty years old, Philp II was assassinated by a trusted member of his bodyguards, a man named Pausanias of Orestis. The result of the assassination meant that Alexander was to be the King of Macedonia much earlier than anyone expected. He was twenty, and yet he was still the Boy King.
According to the gossip of the realm, at some point, this boy was pulled aside by someone, maybe even his mother, and told that the story of his birth as he knew it was a lie. Philip II was not the young man's father. His birth wasn't that ordinary. I am not sure how it might have happened; maybe Mom took her son to the base of Mount Olympus, the Mountain of the gods, just to the south of the young King's territory. There, Alexander was pointed toward the top of the Mountain and told that he was not the son of Philip II, an earthly King. He was the son of Zeus, making Alexander a demigod, a child of the gods.
Was he? Of course not. But it wasn't a bad way to encourage a young man who needed to grow up and become a King faster than anyone thought, to exhort this boy to go out and do as he needed to do. Whatever he set his mind to, he could achieve. He wouldn't be an ordinary King like his stepfather; his ancestry lay with the Greek gods. Who could argue with the gods?
Israel has been on a journey. They are separated from their enslaved lives by barely a year. And now God was ready to take them home. Moses sends in spies to scout out the land, men who are charged with discovering the kind of land that God was giving to them. It was a beautiful land filled with good things. And all of it was theirs if they would just enter the land.
But most spies don't see the good; instead, they are blinded by the obstacles, by the giants living in the land. It doesn't matter how good the land is if they cannot possess it. They don't have the power to take it themselves, and they have lost faith that God walks with them and that he will help them take the land. Instead, they call for another leader, one that will lead them away from this place and back into their lives of slavery in Egypt. They want someone who will apologize to the Pharaoh, beg his forgiveness, and hope he will let them back into their old lives. They want a leader who isn't Moses or Aaron.
Moses and Aaron fall down on their knees without saying a word. They knew that talking to the people at this point was a waste of breath. Right now, they need to pray for the forgiveness of the God they served because they fear what this God might do. And so, they fall on their knees with their faces to the ground, symbolizing the awe with which they held their God. It was also an acknowledgment of the power and judgment of God, something that the people refused to understand.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 15
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