Whatever happened to Gaddiel, son of Sodi?

You have never met him (he lived about B.C. 1490), and it’s unlikely that you have ever met anyone bearing his name. You will however, meet plenty of boys that have been given the names of Gaddiel’s more honored compatriots… Joshua and Caleb. According to the “Baby Name Encyclopedia” Gaddiel has never featured in the top 1000 names for boys list, whereas Joshua consistently rates at number 4, and Caleb always features in the top 50 most popular names.  
  
Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi. Numbers 13:10

Gaddiel was one of the twelve spies that Moses sent out to investigate the Land of Canaan; he went as the representative of the tribe of Zebulun, the tribe named after the tenth son of Jacob, the sixth child born to him by Leah. At the time of the exodus, Zebulun included about 60,000 apparently competent and brave men of war.

The 12 "spies" were clearly not chosen at random. The significance of the task was of the utmost importance, and the honor of the role cannot be overstated.

Gaddiel was a leader among his people, possibly a prince, or  man of high birth, a man of courage, his name means “the Lord my happiness” or “blest of God”. Gaddiel had seen, first-hand, the miracles of God as He devastated the religion of the Egyptians with plagues designed to ridicule the power of their gods. Gaddiel had witnessed a heavenly WMD as God wiped-out Pharaoh’s army, and then turned the natural barrier of the Red Sea into a highway to allow the Israelites free passage into Sinai’s barren wastes.   

However he and his eleven fellow spies encountered things that they had never before experienced. The scouts probably had not seen walled cities, having lived in the land of Goshen in Egypt, with wide open living spaces. Whatever it was that they found in Canaan, giants included, scared their shallow faith from their very beings.

Ten of the spies returned after “scouting” Canaan’s fair land for forty days, only to fill the people’s hearts with fear.

So they brought the Israelites an evil report of the land which they had scouted out, saying, “The land through which we went to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the Nephilim [or giants], the sons of Anak, who come from the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:32-33 

What became of Gaddiel? He and his nine faithless compatriots were, in modern parlance, "terminated". They were stuck dead on the spot, either by an all consuming disease, or some other judgement.
  

A lonely stone marked desert grave.

His bones doubtless lie in a lonely desert grave, waiting perhaps for the day when some Egyptian or Israeli archeologist will uncover them. 

And the men whom Moses sent to search the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble and complain against him by bringing back a slanderous report of the land. Even those men who brought the evil report of the land died by a plague before the Lord. Numbers 14:36-37

Thus ten of the twelve that searched out the land were struck dead, by the justice of God, on the spot! Caleb, of the tribe of Judah, and Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim, alone escaped, because they had followed God fully.

   

If ever there were “forgotten men” in the Bible, then Gaddiel and the nine other “cowards” fit the bill. They forgot about God, and His miraculous ways during their 40 day mission.

They, like the rest of the nation…  “despised the pleasant land; they did not believe  His promise. They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord. So He swore to them with uplifted hand that He would make them fall in the desert, make their descendants fall among the nations and scatter them throughout the lands

Psalm 106:24-27

Gaddiel and his nay-saying friends looked at the circumstances with human eyes… and fulfilled their own prophecy. Joshua and Caleb saw the situation with heavenly vision. They and their children were blessed (and remembered for 3,000 years or more) because of their faith!

Regardless of your situation today, don’t lose your vision! Don’t lose your faith! 

"Promised Land" cartoon © Paul Dallgas-Frey