Chapter
18 – Israel
in the Desert – Post Sinai
In
all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from
above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not
lift, they did not set out--until the day it lifted. So the cloud
of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud
by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel
during all their travels (Ex
40:36-38)
Contents
of Chapter 18
18.1
Where we are
18.2
The Failure at Sinai
18.3
Moving on from Sinai
18.4
Summary
18.5
Conclusions
18.1
Where we are
As
we came to the end of the previous chapter we saw Israel
at the point where they
have just committed themselves to follow the Lord and His Law. |
Israel
were committed to the Law |
They
had received the Law via Moses and committed themselves to it. The
experience of encountering the presence of God on the mountain had
been scary and memorable.
He
had been with them throughout the tree months of travelling to Sinai,
seen in the form of the pillar of cloud during the day and pillar
of fire at night – every day and every night. They had witnessed God's
mighty power in delivering them out of Egypt through the ten ‘plagues'
and then they had witnessed or heard about how Moses, with God's help,
had cleansed the water at Marah, and had brought water from the rock
at Rephidim, and they had received the manna every day except Saturdays.
In
other words they had known the supernatural presence of God
in their deliverance and in their travels and now at Sinai.
But are miracles enough? If not, why not? |
Is
the supernatural presence of God enough? |
In a story that Jesus told we find a rich man appealing at the gates
of heaven, where he has been refused entry, as follows:
Luke
16:27-31 He
answered, `Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house,
for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not
also come to this place of torment.' "Abraham replied, `They
have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' “No, father
Abraham,' he said, `but if someone from the dead goes to them, they
will repent.' "He said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses
and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises
from the dead.'
- The Old Testament has the Law and
the testimony of the prophets – that had not helped many Jews.
- Jesus has come and risen from the
dead and that has not helped many.
- The truth is that we can either
have open hearts, or hard closed hearts, and if it is the latter,
nothing will help.
- So it provided to be for many of
the Israelites – for that is the only way to understand what followed.
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18.2
The Failure at Sinai
If
we continue counting the failures of Israel, we now
come to:
Ex
32:1 When
the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain,
they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who
will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out
of Egypt
,
we don't know what has happened to him."
- You may observe a note in your Bible
that suggests a possible alternative rendering, “make us a god”.
They want a visible representation
- Aaron
then takes their gold earrings
, melts them down and makes
a gold calf (or bull) which he declares is their god.
Ex
32:4-6 He
took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape
of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These
are your gods, O Israel
,
who brought you up out of Egypt
."
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced,
"Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD." So the
next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and
presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and
drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
- Whether Aaron felt bad about this
and tried to direct the people back to the Lord is unclear from
the passage but even his setting a feast to the Lord goes wrong
for it degenerates into a time of revelry. There is little of the
Lord about it.
Ex
32:7-10 Then
the LORD said to Moses, "Go down, because your people, whom you
brought up out of Egypt
,
have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I
commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape
of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have
said, `These are your gods, O Israel
,
who brought you up out of Egypt
.'
"I have seen these people," the LORD said to Moses, "and
they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger
may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make
you into a great nation."
- The Lord is completely aware of
what has been talking place.
- He
tests Moses to see his heart by suggesting that He destroys Israel
and continues with Moses alone.
Ex
32:11-14 But
Moses sought the favour of the LORD his God. "O LORD," he
said, "why should your anger burn against your people, whom you
brought out of Egypt
with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say,
`It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in
the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from
your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel
,
to whom you swore by your own self: `I will make your descendants
as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants
all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.'
" Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the
disaster he had threatened.
- Moses
shows he is a shepherd of Israel
and pleads for them.
- His pleading is on several levels:
- why waste all you've done so far?
- why give the Egyptians grounds
to speak badly of you?
- don't forget your promise of Abraham
and the divine plan.
- He pleads well and the Lord agrees
(not that He had wanted to do it anyway.)
Ex
32:25-30 Moses
saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them
get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.
So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is
for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.
Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel
,
says: `Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through
the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend
and neighbour.' "The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that
day about three thousand of the people died.
- Moses had stood in the camp entrance
and called for all who were for God to come to him.
- Everyone COULD have come, but only
the Levites did come. This suggests that the rest who were there
at the ‘party' were unrepentant.
- It is clear that part of the judgment
is to restore the name of the Lord because of what other neighbouring
nations might have been saying about what was going on.
- The judgement they brought, we should
note, was
a)
only on a very small proportion of the people, which may mean that
only 3000 had been at this orgy before the calf, and b)
although no criteria for killing was given, there must have been
clear reasons why they picked out only 3000 people i.e. it must
have been those obviously involved in the revelry and who probably
were unrepentant.
- What is interesting here is that
there is no indication that the Lord had told Moses to do this.
- This was the response of a man who
has been in God's presence for forty days and is now so horrified
by what he finds that he takes this drastic action.
- If the Lord acquiesced to this action
we must still bear in mind His words through Ezek (Ezek 18) that
we have considered previously and observe that He got no pleasure
from this action.
- That it was a means of dealing with
an unrepentant element who had the potential to destabilise the
nation is almost certain.
- Again and again here, we need to
remind ourselves that hard actions to preserve the larger body of
the nation were, in those circumstances a necessity, grim and unpleasant
as it was.
Ex
32::31-35 So
Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Oh, what a great sin these
people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But
now, please forgive their sin--but if not, then blot me out of the
book you have written." The LORD replied to Moses, "Whoever
has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. Now go, lead the
people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However,
when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their
sin." And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of
what they did with the calf Aaron had made
- In this passage we also see Moses'
willingness to lay down his life for the people as he comes before
the Lord and intercedes for them.
- The
Lord indicates that He will not destroy ALL
the people, but He will destroy
those who sinned against Him, indicating that there are obviously
more than the 3000 who have died already.
- This He does by plague, presumably
taking those who had been involved in the calf worship but missed
by the Levites.
- Again we must emphasise it is an
action of cutting out a ‘cancer' to save the whole body and there
is nothing about God relishing this.
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18.3
Moving on from Sinai
We
will now work our way through the remaining times when Israel
either rebelled or grumbled.
What we see is that God now holds them accountable. They are now people
who have encountered Him at Sinai in a unique way, who came to a place
of commitment to Him. They are now failing in their covenant commitment
if they grumble against God.
| 8th
Grumbling – hardships |
Num
11:1-3 Now
the people complained about their hardships in the
hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused.
Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the
outskirts of the camp. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed
to the LORD and the fire died down. So that place was called Taberah,
because fire from the LORD had burned among them.
- The Lord's action is simply to bring
fire down on the outskirts of the came. It is very restrained, does
not burn up much of the camp and no deaths are recorded – but it
is a clear warning!
| 9th
Grumbling – Boredom with Manna |
Num
11:4-6 The
rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites
started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat!
We remember the fish we ate in Egypt
at no cost--also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.
But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this
manna!"
- The
phrase, ‘the rabble with them' suggests a motley group of non-Israelites
who came out of Egypt
with them who start grumbling and set the rest of the people off
as well.
Num
11:16,17 The
LORD said to Moses: "Bring me seventy of Israel
's
elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people.
Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with
you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of
the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help
you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry
it alone.
- The Lord's response is to give the
wider leadership a taste of His closeness and an involvement as
the Holy Spirit came on them and they were enabled to prophesy.
Num
11:18-20 "Tell
the people: `Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when
you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, "If only
we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt
!"
Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not
eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days,
but for a whole month--until it comes out of your nostrils and you
loathe it--because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and
have wailed before him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"
'
- The disciplinary judgment that comes
on this is to give the people just what they want – meat!
- Except they will have it day after
day for a whole month and they will realise that there is something
about the manna which is satisfying in a way that quail meat is
not.
Num
11:31-35 Now
a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It
brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the
ground, as far as a day's walk in any direction. All that day and
night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail.
No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all
around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth
and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against
the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the
place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people
who had craved other food. From Kibroth Hattaavah the people travelled
to Hazeroth and stayed there.
- It is likely that there was so much
meat - they spread them out all around the camp – that it went off
and became disease ridden and caused a plague.
- Yet it was seen as a direct outworking
of the Lord's discipline. If the people had been careful and had
burnt what was not immediately used, such a thing probably wouldn't
have happened,
- In all of these situations there
was always the possibility of repentance which would have stayed
the hand of the Lord, but that is never forthcoming. This people
do not understand God's goodness and His grace that is just waiting
for them to turn back to Him.
| 10th
Grumbling – by Miriam & Aaron |
Num
12:1-5 Miriam and Aaron began to
talk
against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.
"Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?" they asked. "Hasn't
he also spoken through us?" And the LORD heard this. (Now Moses
was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of
the earth.) At once the LORD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, "Come
out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you." So the three of
them came out. Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood
at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam.
- Miriam and Aaron give way to temptation
and pride and God holds them accountable.
Num
12:9-16 The
anger of the LORD burned against them, and he left them. When the
cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam--leprous, like
snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy; and he
said to Moses, "Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin
we have so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn
infant coming from its mother's womb with its flesh half eaten away."
So Moses cried out to the LORD, "O God, please heal her!"
The LORD replied to Moses, "If her father had spit in her face,
would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside
the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back."
So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people
did not move on till she was brought back. After that, the people
left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert
of Paran
.
- God's anger against this foolish
couple is strong but He simply moves away from them!
- When the cloud lifts Miriam appears
leprous. It is an obvious judgment.
- Moses intercedes for her and the
Lord allows he respite but only after a week's exclusion.
- It is a salutary lesson but the
couple both survive it! God has been merciful.
| 11th
Grumbling – At giants in the land |
Num
13:1-3 The
LORD said to Moses, "Send some men to explore the land
of Canaan
,
which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send
one of its leaders." So at the LORD's command Moses sent them
out from the Desert
of Paran
.
All of them were leaders of the Israelites.
- The Lord initiates the spying out
of the Promised Land.
- We may wonder why He did it when
he surely knew what the result would be but the truth is that the
Lord only knows what the future will be because He sees in the future
what does happen and he has to allow it to happen to give them the
chance to rise in faith.
Num
13:26-32 They
came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at
Kadesh in the Desert
of Paran.
There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them
the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: "We went
into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and
honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful,
and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants
of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev;
the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and
the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan."
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."
But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those
people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among
the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They
said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the
people we saw there are of great size.
- The reports are mixed. It is a land
of plenty but there are occupants.
- This requires faith, the belief
that God is with them and if He says they can do it, then they can
do it. This is Caleb's position. Unfortunately the majority don't
agree.
Num
14:1-4 That
night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept
aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron
, and the whole assembly said to them, "If only we had
died in Egypt
!
Or in this desert! Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to
let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as
plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt
?"
And they said to each other, "We should choose a leader and go
back to Egypt
."
- The majority sway the people and
the people reject Moses and, by implication, God.
Num
14:11,12 The
LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with
contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of
all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike
them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into
a nation greater and stronger than they."
- Again
the Lord tests Moses with an offer of taking over from Israel
Num
14:13-23 Moses
said to the LORD, "Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By
your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will
tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard
that you, O LORD, are with these people and that you, O LORD, have
been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that
you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire
by night. If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations
who have heard this report about you will say, `The LORD was not able
to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he
slaughtered them in the desert.' "Now may the Lord's strength
be displayed, just as you have declared: `The LORD is slow
to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion .
Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children
for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.' In
accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people,
just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt
until now." The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as
you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the
glory of the LORD fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw
my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the
desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times --
not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their
forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see
it.
- Again Moses comes through in a good
way and passes the test. in so doing he reiterates the truth of
the situation. He pleads on the following grounds:
- what
will the inhabitants of Canaan
think of Him?
- He has declared that he is a loving
and forgiving God.
- It is a good response and the Lord
accepts it - yet these people WILL be held accountable! They have
got to learn that they are accountable for their actions.
- This present generation over the
age of twenty (age of accountability) will never enter the land
but the Lord will not wipe them out; they will simply die naturally
in the desert over the next forty years. It is a remarkably restrained
act with the purpose of teaching this nation something that will
be remembered in future generations.
| 12th
Grumbling – Against Moses |
Num
16:1-3 Korah
son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites--Dathan
and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth-- became insolent
and rose up against Moses . With them were 250 Israelite
men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of
the council. They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said
to them, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy,
every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set
yourselves above the LORD's assembly?"
- There is a leadership rebellion
Num
16:19-27 When
Korah had gathered all his followers in opposition to them at the
entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the glory of the LORD appeared to
the entire assembly. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Separate
yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once."
But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and cried out, "O God, God
of the spirits of all mankind, will you be angry with the entire assembly
when only one man sins?" Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say
to the assembly, `Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.'
" Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders
of Israel
followed him. He warned the assembly, "Move back from the tents
of these wicked men! Do not touch anything belonging to them, or you
will be swept away because of all their sins." So they moved
away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram
had come out and were standing with their wives, children and little
ones at the entrances to their tents.
- The Lord steps in. Another test
for Moses? The Lord suggests wiping out the whole assembly.
- Moses intercedes for them. The Lord
agrees to deal with the troublemakers only.
- Moses does not intercede for the
guilty ones.
Num
16:31-35 As
soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart
and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households
and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive
into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over
them, and they perished and were gone from the community. At their
cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, "The earth
is going to swallow us too!" And fire came out from the LORD
and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.
- Earthquake and fire take all the
rebels.
| 13th
Grumbling – Against Moses (2) |
Num
16:41-50 The
next day the whole Israelite community grumbled
against Moses and Aaron. "You have killed the LORD's people,"
they said. But when the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and
Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting, suddenly the cloud covered
it and the glory of the LORD appeared. Then Moses and Aaron went to
the front of the Tent of Meeting, and the LORD said to Moses, "Get
away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once."
And they fell facedown. Then Moses said to Aaron, "Take your
censer and put incense in it, along with fire from the altar, and
hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out
from the LORD; the plague has started." So Aaron did as Moses
said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already
started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement
for them. He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague
stopped. But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those
who had died because of Korah. Then Aaron returned to Moses at the
entrance to the Tent of Meeting, for the plague had stopped.
- The whole nation don't see it! They
blame Moses and Aaron for what was clearly a divine intervention.
- The Lord threatens destruction of
a nation that just cannot believe in Him and in His holy judgment.
- Moses intercedes with sacrificial
incense and the plague which has started is stopped.
| 14th
Grumbling – Against Moses & Aaron for lack of water |
Num
20:1-5 In
the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert
of Zin
,
and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. Now there
was no water for the community, and the people gathered in
opposition to Moses and Aaron . They quarrelled with Moses
and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before
the LORD! Why did you bring the LORD's community into this desert,
that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up
out of Egypt
to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates.
And there is no water to drink!"
- The nation is stuck in the wilderness
and this now seems to get to the people who oppose Moses because
of further lack of water.
Num
20:6-12 Moses
and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting
and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. The
LORD said to Moses, "Take the staff, and you and your brother
Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their
eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the
rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."
So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as he commanded
him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock
and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you
water out of this rock?" Then Moses raised his arm and struck
the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community
and their livestock drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because
you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of
the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I
give them."
- The Lord does nothing about the
grumbling and simply gives Moses instructions again on how to bring
water from the rock.
- Moses is fed up with the people
and speaks and acts harshly.
- Because he was not restrained and
was not a good example, he will be taken home early and will not
go into the Promised Land.
| 15th
Grumbling – Against God & against Moses for impatience |
Num
21:4-9 They
travelled from Mount
Hor
along the route to the Red
Sea ,
to go around Edom
.
But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against
God and against Moses , and said, "Why have you brought
us up out of Egypt
to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we
detest this miserable food!" Then the LORD sent venomous snakes
among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people
came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the
LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away
from us." So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses,
"Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can
look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it
up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at
the bronze snake, he lived.
- Yet again the people act badly.
- Snakes appear in the wilderness
and a number die from them.
- The Lord instructs Moses to provide
a faith icon for those who have been bitten to come to (as to God)
and they are healed.
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18.4
Summary
|
PRE
SINAI
|
|
|
1
|
Ex
14:10 -12
|
Grumbling
– at being trapped by Pharaoh |
Deliverance
|
2
|
Ex
15:22 -24
|
Grumbling
– Foul Water of Marah |
Water
cleansed |
3
|
Ex
16:1-5 |
Grumbling
– lack of food |
Manna
provided |
4
|
Ex
16:19 -20
|
Disobedience
– holding on to manna |
Moses
angry |
5
|
Ex
16:27 -30
|
Disobedience
–manna on the Sabbath |
Telling
off |
6
|
Ex
17:1-7 |
Grumbling
– lack of water |
Water
from the rock |
|
SINAI
|
|
|
7
|
Ex
32:1-35 |
The
Golden Calf |
Levites
kill 3000 + plague |
|
POST
SINAI |
|
|
8
|
Num
11:1-3 |
Grumbling
– hardships |
Fire
burned outskirts |
9
|
Num
11:4-34 |
Grumbling
– boredom with Manna |
Quail
and plague |
10
|
Num
12:1-5 |
Grumbling
– Miriam & Aaron |
Temporary
leprosy |
11
|
Num
13 & 14 |
Grumbling
– at giants in the land |
Walk
the desert for 40 years |
12
|
Num
16:1-35 |
Grumbling
– against Moses |
Earthquake
& fire kill rebels |
13
|
Num
16:41 -50
|
Grumbling
– against Moses (2) |
14,700
die by plague |
14
|
Num
20:1-5 |
Grumbling
– lack of water |
Moses
forbidden to enter the land |
15
|
Num
21:4-9 |
Grumbling
– impatience |
Snakes
bit many |
The
‘rebellions' of Israel
in the wilderness clearly fall into two groups – those before Sinai
and those after. In all the cases before Sinai the Lord treats them
leniently and simply provides for them again and again.
In
the ones after Sinai there is a painful consequence because now the
Lord holds them accountable because now they have entered into a covenant
with Him and now they have had a much closer personal encounter with
Him. Now they should know.
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18.5
Conclusions
a)
Purpose
•
To remind ourselves – God's intent
is to create a nation that listens to Him, learns from Him, obeys
Him, receives all good things from Him, and becomes an example of
His blessing to the rest of the world.
•
Therefore everything the Lord does
in response to Israel 's
rebellions will be to seek to teach them and lead them into a right
place with Him.
b)
Actions
•
Seen on their own, some of the consequences
or ‘judgments' appear really bad. Put in context they seem far less
so:
|
Nature
of Grumble |
Discipline
|
Likely
lessons learnt |
8
|
Hardships
|
Fire
burned outskirts |
A
warning – watch out! |
9
|
Boredom
with Manna |
Quail
and plague |
The
extent of it was determined by their own behaviour in clearing
up or not clearing up. |
10
|
Miriam
& Aaron |
Temporary
leprosy |
A
short warning |
11
|
Refusal
to enter the land |
Walk
the desert for 40 years |
Just
live your lives here- you're not going anywhere! |
12
|
Against
Moses |
Earthquake
& fire kill rebels |
Leadership
holds special responsibility |
13
|
Against
Moses (2) |
14,700
die by plague |
You
can still die early! |
14
|
Lack
of water |
Moses
forbidden to enter |
No
one is beyond correction. |
15
|
Impatience
|
Snakes
bit many |
Go
to God and get healed |
It
is worth noting that numbers 12 to 15 all occurred after the decree
that Israel
would remain in the wilderness for the next forty years. Whether there
is a sense of ‘we're past caring' in the community, is not clear.
No.13 may have had an element of deterrence about it if there was
that attitude in the older generation.
No.8
did not affect life.
No.10
affected only one leader for a short time.
No.14
affected only one person's long term future (he was already 120!)
No.11
let the nation continue to live in the desert.
No.7
removed in excess of 3000 unrepentant revellers
No.12
removed 250 takeover-rebels
No's.
9 & 15 were determined by personal behaviour.
We
should observe before finishing that, although we tend of focus on
those who died in the latter rebellions, they actually form a tiny
minority of the population, most of whom would have been completely
untouched by these things.
To
conclude, again we must emphasise there is a great deal of difference
between God who acts as just Law administrator and executor in saving
the nation and grieving over it, and a God who relishes such things
as are postulated by atheists and general critics.
That
latter description is far from the God who is revealed throughout
the Bible as a whole. As we have commented a number of times,
we need to take the overall picture of God that is conveyed through
the whole Bible and apply it to our understanding of specific limited
incidents, and not the other way round. We may need a refresher in
chapter 4, specifically in the section on 'But what is love?'