being worthy of mercy.

The Israelites could not even be roused to look for the present temporal
promise, and hankered after the fine soil and rich fruits of Egypt,
rather than the beautiful land of hill and valley that lay before them;
and when their spies reported it to be full of hill forts, held by
Canaanites of giant stature, a cowardly cry of despair broke out, that
they would return to Egypt. Only two of the whole host, besides Moses,
were ready to trust to Him who had delivered them from Pharaoh, and had
led them through the sea. Therefore those two alone of the grown-up men
were allowed to set foot in the Promised Land. Till all the rest should
have fallen in the wilderness, and a better race have been trained up,
God would not help them to take possession. In their wilfulness they
tried to advance, and were defeated, and thus were obliged to endure
their forty years' desert wandering.

Even Moses had his patience worn out by their fretful faithlessness,
and committed an act of disobedience, for which he was sentenced not to
enter the land, but to die on the borders after one sight of the promise
of his fathers. Under him, however, began the work of conquest; the rich
pasture lands of Gilead and Basan were subdued, and the tribes of Reuben
and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, were permitted to take these as
their inheritance, though beyond the proper boundary, the Jordan. The
Moabites took alarm, though these, as descended from Abraham's nephew
Lot, were to be left unharmed; and their king, Balak, sent, as it
appears, even to Mesopotamia for Balaam, a true prophet, though a guilty
man, in hopes that he would bring down the curse of God on them. Balaam,
greedy of reward, forced, as it were, consent from God to go to Balak,
though warned that his words would not be in his own power. As he stood
on the hill top with Balak, vainly endeavouring to curse, a glorious