One of the most sobering verses in all the Bible is Psalm 78:41, which says that they “limited the Holy One of Israel.” It is an awesome, sobering thought that mere man could limit Almighty God.
The Hebrew word translated as limit literally means “to mark off” or “to circumscribe”—as if to put boundaries around. This verse has reference to Israel’s refusal to possess the Promised Land. That experience is related to us first in Numbers 13, and then it is recounted again by Moses in Deuteronomy 1:19-26.
Israel has been out of Egypt for 18 months at this point. The shortest route from Egypt to the Promised Land would have taken 11 days, but God routed them through the Sinai Peninsula while teaching them and...