"Moses Strikes the Rock"
Numbers 20:1-13; Deuteronomy 34:1-8
It has been at least forty long years since Moses stood in the presence of the LORD God at the burning bush (Exodus 3) and heeded God's call for him to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrew people out of bondage to slavery. It has been forty long years since the plagues devastated the people of Egypt (Exodus 7-11); forty long years since the first Passover (Exodus 12); forty long years since the miraculous parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14); forty long years since Moses led the people into the wilderness (Exodus 15); forty years since they received the Law of God at the Mountain of God (Exodus 19) ; forty long years since they began relying on God completely for their daily sustenance through manna and quail (Exodus 16); forty long years since they came to the edge of the Promised Land (Numbers 14), yet turned away in fear; forty long years...
Now, all of the people of Israel over twenty years of age at the time of their refusal to enter the Promised Land have died. A new, younger Israel, was preparing to claim their inheritance. They had endured tent living in the desert for four decades...they were ready. Once again, Moses has brought them up to the edge of the Promised Land, he was 120 year old. Surely, he must have been thinking to himself, the people are ready for this next stage in their life. Surely they will enthusiastically take to the mission at hand. Surely they will be ready to endure the rigors of taking the land. Yet what did the people do? Yet again, they complained. Verse 3 reads, "Would that we had perished before the LORD! Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink."
Moses and his brother Aaron, the High Priest of God's people, took this concern/complaint to the LORD by prostrating themselves at the door to the Tent of Meeting. Remarkably, God does not seem angry or upset with his people. He instructs Moses and Aaron not to punish the people, but rather, to gather the people, speak to the rock, and water will come out for the people and their livestock.
Moses and Aaron dutifully do as God has commanded and call the people together--but when he looks at them, he becomes overcome with emotion. Moses doesn't like God being gentle with the people after their complaints. For forty years he has been living with their verbal abuse, their condescension towards him, their unfaithfulness to both God and his leadership, their multiple attempts to overthrow him, and their refusal to trust God fully for their daily provision. On top of that, we read in Verse 1 that Moses and Aaron's sister Miriam has just died. Along with Moses' anger, we can infer, is grief. A grief, and maybe even anger, that his sister would not make it to the Promised Land.
Rather than speaking to the rock, Moses loses focus, due to his anger at the people, for a short time and strikes the rock. This is in direct violation of what God expected from him. Despite not following the Lord's instructions, water is allowed to come from the rock, but not without repercussions. In Verse 12 we read, "And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.'"
Wow. For many years this passage REALLY bothered me. Moses has done his best for over forty years to be faithful to God in leading God's people to freedom. He didn't want the job in the first place, but Moses did his best--despite overwhelming opposition from the people at times--to lead the people in a godly manner. He made one mistake; just one mistake--and now the thing he has been most looking forward to for all of these years has been taken away from him. It just doesn't seem fair.
In Number 12 we read that Moses is among the most humble of men in all of the earth, and as we continue to read in Numbers after the "striking the rock" incident, Moses accepts his punishment with grace. Many people if they had received a punishment like Moses would have given up. They would have quit, or perhaps resigned. But Moses does no such thin. Rather, he continues to lead the people to the Promised Land. He continues to intercede for them to the Lord at the Tent of Meeting. He continues to follow God's instructions for his people Israel. He transfers Aaron's office of High Priest to Aaron's son Eleazor, and then buries his brother.
I knew a lady at the first church I pastored who was over 100 years old. I asked her once what was the hardest aspect of aging. She told me it was seeing her husband, her friends, her siblings, her cousins, and even her children die before her...
Moses had seen a lot of death in his 120 years. He had watched an entire generation die in the desert,
What I once thought was a punishment beyond comprehension for Moses, I now understand as a great act of love and devotion by God. Moses' personal actions prevented him from entering into the physical, temporary Promised Land of Canaan...just as our own personal actions often prevent us from outcomes that we desire, yet God did welcome Moses into THE Promised Land at the end of his life.
How do I know this? In the Gospels we read that when Jesus ascended the Mountain of Transfiguration, along with Peter, James, and John, that he was visited by two Old Testament figures: Elijah and Moses. Moses didn't march with the people of Israel into the physical land that God had promised Abraham centuries before, but God did welcome Moses into THE Promised Land. Perhaps when Moses closed his eyes on earth for the last time he heard God welcome him home, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Soli Deo Gloria! To God Alone Be All the Glory!
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