What If Israel Had Obeyed?

Back in the seventies and eighties, when Marvel Comics had yet to become a cesspool of woke craziness and child propaganda (though parents at the time would probably argue it had other sinister aspects), the imprint published a semi-regular comic entitled What If?

Like the Apocrypha, What If? was non-canonical. Its readers understood its stories were even more imaginary than usual, in the sense that they were not intended to be part of any character’s regular ongoing narrative arc. A What If? story was the Butterfly Effect dramatized. Take a famous comic storyline and make one small change in the circumstances or choices of the characters, then see how it plays out differently with all its unexpected consequences.

Like the multiverse before anyone came up with that nonsensical idea.

Moral Choices and Math

The What If? stories that interested me most always involved choices. Who cares what people do differently when you give them no options? Moral choices are the most interesting of all. What If Wolverine Had Killed the Hulk? Don’t you care just a little bit? No, me neither. But you get the general idea.

I love math, and so I’ve been doing a little bit of calculating in biblical What If? territory. I know, I know, I always say I hate hypotheticals. But work with me, there’s a point here somewhere.

Numbers is the second-last book of the Pentateuch. Chapter 14 has Israel refusing to enter the land after believing the cowardly report and advice of ten of the twelve men sent to spy out Canaan from their camp in the wilderness of Paran, across the Jordan. So now, What If Israel Had Obeyed God in Numbers 14? That surely beats Hulk and Wolverine pulverizing each other for 30 pages.

Our regular readers know what happens right after Israel refuses to enter the land. God sentences all but two men to wander in the wilderness until the entire generation that refused to believe God perishes, after which their children will be allowed to enter Canaan. The process, God says, will take forty years.

Rethinking the Rest of Numbers

If Israel trusts God to give them victory and enters the land as commanded in Numbers 14, we need to rewrite the rest of the book. A whole series of events never occur:

• Israel is not defeated by the Amalekites and Canaanites at the end of the chapter. Total dead: not clear, but probably more than a few.
• Korah and friends probably do not rebel. Dathan and Abiram specifically reference the failure to enter the land as provocation for their coup. Total dead: at least 14,979.
• Israel has no negative encounters with Edom or Moab, since they now have no need to pass through their territories. They are already at the border of Canaan. In actual history, the need to pass through those territories provoked the dispossession of Edom and unnecessary wars with Moab and Midian. Total dead or dispossessed: innumerable.
• It becomes unnecessary to fight the Amorites or people of Bashan and possess their cities. Total dead: yeah, I know. You can stop counting now.
• The fiery serpent episode of chapter 21 never happens. Total dead: “many”. Also, the bronze serpent created to resolve the resulting plague is not preserved for centuries and does not end up getting worshiped by later Israelites, drawing generations astray into judgment. Total dead: even more, and even further downstream.
• Balaam does not get involved with cursing Israel and preserves his own life at least. Total dead: one. Also, he doesn’t counsel Balak to corrupt Israel, and every Midianite male and all the adult females survive.
• The incident with the Midianite and Moabite women at Shittim does not occur, provoking yet another plague on Israel. Total dead: 24,000 plus at least two.
• The tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh enter Canaan without ever seeing the Transjordan cities and coveting them. As a result, they hold out much longer against Assyria centuries later because they have other tribes nearby to fight alongside them.

Wouldn’t you like to read THAT story condensed to 30 pages of well-drawn pictures?

A Job That Kept Expanding

There are plenty of other differences in our story. Miriam, Moses and Aaron all get to enter the land at a ripe old age and see Canaan. Aaron’s staff probably does not bud. These things and many others factor into scripture at later dates, and even into types and theology, though they do not involve staggering numbers of deaths. And that’s just Numbers. If we continued through Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges, we could probably trace other consequences of listening to the ten spies rather than the word of the Lord. 99% of them would not be good.

Israel had a mandate to conquer and settle in Canaan. They had no instructions to fight with Edomites, Moabites, Amalekites, Midianites or, for that matter, the Amorites of the Transjordan, or at least they didn’t until they had to either in self-defense or on the instruction of God. Almost all the battles that took place outside Canaan were the direct result of sins provoked because Israel failed to cross the Jordan in faith. Innumerable unnecessary deaths happened because pagan kings with chips on their shoulders opted to confront a people who were not hostile to them, and who never should have been in their territory in the first place. Moreover, forty years of wandering gave Israel forty years worth of temptations, and a bare minimum of 40,000 more dead from plagues, serpents, war and who-knows-what else. Significant numbers of that wicked generation did not die in their beds.

Sin Cascade

Each of my sins creates almost infinite occasions for the sins of others. In a sense, this is not a new lesson. “By one man sin entered into the world.” Almost every sin has multiple causes and multiple culprits. Many could be traced back generations. Most didn’t have to happen.

Only the infinite knowledge of God could ever unpack that complexity and give each one exactly what he deserves, not just for the things done in the body, but also for those that cascaded into the future, stumbling others and provoking further wrath.

Next time somebody excuses a morally questionable act with the words “What could it hurt?”, maybe start making them a list.