“Multiplication by Subtraction”

Deuteronomy 1: 10: “The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.” When Israel refused to take the Promised Land at Kadesh Barnea (Numbers 24: 19), they were told that everyone among them above the age of twenty must die before the nation could try again to enter, and the people mourned greatly. You’d think that the killing off of a whole generation would lessen their number. But Israel needn’t mourn over that; forty years in the wilderness didn’t subtract from them, but multiplied them. Laugh, people of God! In the midst of subtraction, the Lord your God increases you!