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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 1 of 5
Numbers 20:14-29
A glance at the map shows that to pass from the wilderness to the Jordan valley going round the Dead Sea, you have to cross Seir, Edom’s country. Remembering their relationship to this nation (Esau, the ancestor of Edom, was Jacob’s brother), Israel asks them for permission to pass through. But Edom replies by a refusal accompanied by threats. What hardness of heart! That their brethren are at that moment exhausted (v. 14) leaves them unmoved. Self-interest, the fear of being inconvenienced, override all other sentiments. Edom with its king represents the world and its ruler which would like to prevent the children of God from reaching heaven, their home.
This request on the part of Israel is beautiful! It bears witness to their former condition, and to what God has done for them. Next it states that they have need of nothing; they will pass through on foot merely, without being indebted to anyone. Neither the fields, nor the vines (for us life’s business and the world’s joys), nor the wells of Edom, since the rock has been found again, none of these has any attraction for a people on their way to their homeland.
Just as the LORD had announced in v. 12, Aaron dies before the entry into Canaan, and the succession passes to his son Eleazar.
