Having received their sentence from the Lord, the people then presumptuously proceeded to go up on their own to take the land (vv. 40-42).
"They are like children who had broken a valuable vase and decided to make it better' by gluing it back together. The result of such action looks nothing like the original."126
The Israelites refused to accept God's discipline as they had refused to accept His promise. Thus they rebelled against Him again even though Moses sounded the ominous warning, "the LORD will not be with you"(v. 43). They tried to gain His blessings without Him, which is unbelief. Consequently God allowed their enemies to rout them. The key to success would not be their military might or psychological power but their obedient trust in God.
It is also possible for us Christians to fail to enter into our full reward if we fail to continue to trust and obey God (1 Cor. 9:24-10:13; Heb. 3:12-4:14).127Every genuine Christian will eventually go to heaven, but only the faithful will receive all the rewards God wants each Christian to possess. God will give or withhold these at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Cor. 3:11-15; 2 Cor. 5:10; et al.).
"This rather large section of narrative [i.e., chs. 13-14] introduces an important element in the development of God's covenant with Israel: the theme of the faithfulness of God in keeping the covenant and the unfaithfulness of humans in not trusting him.
"Following the account of the people's failure to believe in God in chapters 13 and 14, the writer has attached a further and rather large set of laws dealing with sacrifice and the priesthood (15:1-19:22). Thus, as has been the case throughout the earlier parts of the Pentateuch, after an account of Israel's unbelief, more laws are added within the narrative [cf. Exod. 32; Gal. 3:19-23]."128
Battles, this one and the battle with the Canaanites in 21:1-3, frame this section of laws and the Lord's discipline of the Israelites in the wilderness during the next 38 years.129
