Chapter 20

This chapter begins and ends with the death of someone much-beloved of both Moses and the rest of the people of Israel.

At the beginning of the chapter, both of his siblings are alive; at the end, both Miriam and Aaron have died.

I’m guessing this wasn’t the best week that Moses had ever had – and that was only part of what had gone wrong.

Yeah, you guessed it – the people started bickering. Again. What a surprise!

This time the issue was water, it being in short supply at this place in the Wilderness of Zin, called “Meribah” (Hebrew word meaning “bickering”). And once again, the mantra of “You brought us out of peace, plenty and the joy of volunteering to build the Egyptians’ cities to die out here in this lonely stinking desert, with nothing to eat except a miraculous bread from heaven in the morning and enough quail to choke a horse at night” is heard throughout the camp.

Moses loses his temper at the people – and this is to have terrible consequences for him. More about that later. But he acts very put-upon as he performs the heart-wrenchingly difficult task of whacking a rock with a staff.

Woah. You de man.

Water comes out, and the bickering ends. For the moment.

Just when Moses week couldn’t possibly have been any worse, it gets worse! The Edomites (distant relatives of the Israelites) refuse to let them pass, even traveling by the main highway. In a way it sucks to be them, because they’re actually (without realizing it) setting themselves up for a long term conflict by getting people who will ultimately be neighbours REALLY PEEVED with them.

Not that that helps the Israelites, who are now forced to go around the land of Edom. And that’s a long way.

So what is the cash value for us today?

It is here – Moses will ultimately be banned from the Promised land for this incident at Meribah – he allows his temper to get the better of them, and sarcastically pretends to be doing a magic trick when the water comes out.

Now some people ask if God wasn’t being a little harsh – isn’t it a bit mean to lock Moses out of the land for such a small indiscretion?

The problem is not so much that God dislikes conjuring – it’s more that God dislikes it when we throw a wobbler or when we claim credit for what He has done for us. And it’s a serious matter – to take credit for what God has done is ALWAYS risky!

Biblical heroes are portrayed warts and all. There’s no attempt to preserve an image of them. Moses made mistakes like you and I. If we were in his place, we’d not be going either!

It’s important to recognize that things which may not matter to us might where we are might just matter to God.

Our own sin is almost invisible to us, because we are good at finding the right Christian words and can hide it from ourselves. But make no mistake, we are sinners just like Moses. We’d be locked out of the Promised land too.

But God’s love is great. and as a result of that, we can have our sin overlooked; something that Moses never could have.