lt is evident that we must know something of this provocation on the part of Israel if we would profit by the

Scripture before us. In Numbers 14 we have the record. Caleb and Joshua had urged upon the people a confident

faith in the Lord with respect to the entry into and possession of the land of promise.

`But all the congregation bade stone them with stones ... And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people

PROVOKE Me?' (Num. 14:10,11).

Their provoking was largely due to their unbelief, for the passage continues, `How long will it be ere they

believe Me?' The Lord threatened to disinherit and smite the people, but upon the prayer of Moses, He said, `I have

pardoned according to thy word' (20). The people therefore were a pardoned people. But does this mean that they

did go up and possess the land? No, for after pronouncing the gracious pardon the Lord added:

`But as truly as I live ... surely they shall not see the land ... neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it' (Num.

14:21-23; see also Psa. 99:8; 2 Sam. 12:10-12).

In Numbers 14:22 the Lord declares that already this people had tempted Him ten times. Some have taken this

literally, and The Companion Bible sets out the `ten times' as follows:

At the Red Sea

(Exod. 14:11,12).

At Marah

(Exod. 15:23,24).

The Wilderness of Sin

(Exod. 16:2).

Twice about the Manna

(Exod. 16:20,27).

At Rephidim

(Exod. 17:1-3).

At Horeb (golden calf)

(Exod. 32).

At Taberah

(Num. 11:1).

At Kibroth Hataavah

(Num. 11:34).

At Kadesh

(Num. 14:2).

While we must honour those who have taken God at His Word, and have collected `ten' occasions in the history

of Israel's wanderings where they `tempted' the Lord, we must remember that there were other occasions both

before and after Numbers 14:22 when Israel provoked the Lord by their unbelief, and which form an essential part

of those Scriptures which have been written for our learning. Meribah (Exod. 17:7) was repeated (Num. 20:7-13)

with disastrous results to Moses himself (see verse 12). 1 Corinthians 10 enumerates some of the `provocations' of

the wilderness, and introduces that most extraordinary testimony to the fact that Christ was before His incarnation

`The Lord God' of Israel:

`Neither let us tempt CHRIST, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents' (1 Cor. 10:9).

Dr. John Lightfoot says `The nation of the Jews delighted mightily in the number TEN, both in sacred and civil

matters. A synagogue consisted not but of ten men at least, and the number of those who comforted the mourners

after the burial of the dead, consisted of ten at the least. `Peradventure ten shall be found there' (Gen. 18:32), aid

Abraham and apparently reached the minimum. Jacob complained of his treatment at the hand of Laban saying

`Your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times' (Gen. 31:7). Are we to take the number `ten'

literally in such a statement as:

`And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven' (Lev. 26:26)?

When Elkanah in his endeavour to comfort his wife said: `Am not I better to thee than ten sons?' (1 Sam. 1:8),

does anyone believe that his intention would be expressed the more or the less had he said `eleven' sons, or `nine'?

Why `ten loaves' or `ten cheeses'? (1 Sam. 17:17,18).  Are we expected to count the occasions when the

`comforters' of Job had reproached him `ten times'? (Job 19:3). To these examples we may add the `ten days' and

the `ten times better' of Daniel 1, the `ten men' of Amos 6:9 and Zechariah 8:23.

The provoking of the Lord by Israel is introduced in Hebrews 3 as an extension or illustration of the exhortation

given in verse 6,

`Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end',