"The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying"
Numbers 1:1
Briefly, the story of Numbers is as follows: Israel is preparing to leave Mount Sinai on the road to the Promised Land. It was a journey of some weeks, perhaps two or three months at the most, if they had taken a direct route. They proceeded towards the border, to a place called Kadesh Barnea, where spies, one from each tribe, were sent in to reconnoitre and re- port back to Moses. The majority report of the spies was against going forward, in spite of the known will of God for them to go in and possess the land, and in spite of the protests of Caleb and Joshua, two of the spies who saw beyond the difficulties and hazards they would undoubtedly have to face, the opportunities set before them by a faithful and enabling God. The pessimistic report won the day, and the people murmured against the Lord, Who in anger turned them back and refused to let them enter in. For nearly forty years they were made to wander in the wilderness, till that entire generation died off. The main part of the book there- fore deals with the experience of divine discipline in the wilderness, 'in the crucible of God'. The end of the book shows Israel 'not out of the bit' geographically, and further forward but a sadder and wiser people. Numbers is a book that need not have been, a story that need never have been told.