Kadesh-Barnea

Kadesh-barnea is where a whole generation talked itself out of the land God had promised. Moses sent twelve men in from this oasis, one from each tribe, to spy out Canaan. They came back with fruit in their hands and a good report about the land itself, but ten of them added a warning: the cities were fortified, and they had seen the descendants of Anak. Caleb tried to quiet the people and told them to go up at once, that they could conquer the land. The other ten spies would not be quieted. They called the land one that devours its inhabitants and said they had seemed like grasshoppers next to the people living there. The whole camp wept that night and talked about choosing a new leader to take them back to Egypt. God's sentence matched the crime exactly. Not one of that generation who had seen His glory in Egypt and in the wilderness, and still tested Him, would see the land, except Caleb, because he had a different spirit and followed the LORD wholeheartedly. The years of wandering were set at forty, a year for each of the forty days the spies had spent in Canaan. The ten men who spread the fearful report died at once by plague. A group who then tried to go up into the hill country anyway, against Moses' own warning, were routed by the Amalekites and Canaanites living there, chased all the way to Hormah. Decades later, the next generation camped at the same oasis. Miriam died there and was buried. With no water for the people, God told Moses to speak to the rock in front of the congregation so it would give water. Moses struck the rock twice instead, and though water still came out, God told him that because he had not trusted God to show His holiness before Israel, he would not bring the people into the land himself. The same waters, later called Meribah, mark the point where the man who led Israel out of Egypt was told he would not lead them in.