Ep 926 – Deuteronomy 1:9-18

Why can't you all just get along? Oh, if I only had a dollar for every time my mother asked that question of my three siblings and myself. I would be a rich man. You see, we didn't get along very often. We fought. We bickered and argued. And we seldom spent more than a few hours together without an argument breaking out among us. As you can imagine, family vacations were particularly fun for my mom and dad. Four kids crammed into the family car and forced to spend prolonged periods of quality time together in close quarters. Moses must have felt like my dad. Except his family numbered in the millions and the number of the daily disputes left Moses feeling overwhelmed and ready to turn in his title as the deliverer of Israel. This poor man was required by God to lead a veritable host of hostile, perpetually unhappy campers who had made a national sport out of bickering and complaining. And while Moses had hired extra help to handle the caseloads from all the disputes, the interpersonal climate among the people of Israel had not exactly taken a turn for the better. And Moses knew that if they couldn't learn to get along, they would never get far in the quest to conquer the nations of Canaan.