Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
Numbers is full of rather dense people. I think Balak excels himself in believing that God is going to change his mind depending on the mountain he and Balaam stand on. The most significant moment for the Isrealites isn’t really there stupidest, to be fair. Having sent out spies to check out the land which God has said he is going to give them, they decide that it’s a bit scary and they don’t want to play that game. To be fair to most of the Isrealites, all they are hearing from the spies is doom a gloom about how big and butch the chaps in that land are.
Today’s photo is a tribute the Caleb-the-spy. He struck me as a glass-half-full kind of person. I’m sure he’d seen the same scary natives but he choses to focus on the rewards for victory and says “We can do it”. Sadly he doesn’t attribute the “we can do it” part to God, because then I’d have more reason for having picked him as my subject for today. I think I chose him because he did stand out in the Book of Numbers as someone positively doing the right thing. Balaam does pretty well mostly, Aaron is a good chap, but gets it wrong a couple of times and even Moses messes up. Caleb is one of the two over-twenty-when-the-Isrealites-started-wandering to make it into the promised land. Joshua was the other one, but he gets “bigged up” in children’s bibles/songs etc. and I might get to talk about him later. So I picked the Caleb.
The really “duh” moment comes a bit later when having grumbled and been told by God that they’ve blown it, the Isrealites then decide to have a go at taking the land by force and get properly whooped. I wonder if God ever considered trying reverse-physcology on them to get them to do what he really wanted?
The photo
I wasn’t really thinking. I guess this should have been a glass half-full of milk. But I got myself a port instead, of which this is a half-full glass. I did try lighting it on a table, but decided the black material base would be easier for the effect I wanted. Note to self: Must clean the glass next time.
SB-800 strobe off camera, manual mode, 1/2 power with a cardboard&drinking straw snoot. 70mm @ f10 1/60s ISO 200