Morning Prayer OT readings from Numbers this week are startling as well as revealing: 1) startling because of the persistent rebellion of Israel against Moses and Aaron’s divinely appointed leadership, hence a rebellion against God; 2) revealing because of God’s provision for Israel as well as his divine judgments against Israel.
Before we are halfway through Numbers we are told that Israel had rebelled against against God ten times. Numbers 14:22 Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice.
This week’s readings:
In Numbers 16-17 Korah, Dathan and Abiram rebel against Aaron
In Numbers 20 The congregation of Israel lacked water and gathered together against Moses and Aaron … Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord! And why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place?
Israel had seen God’s glory and His miracles which He did in Egypt and in the wilderness … and yet Israel did not trust God. Israel’s complaints became so burdensome that Moses became tired and frustrated in dealing with them and he in turn complained to the Lord:
Numbers 11 So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have put the burden of all this people on me? 12 Was it I who conceived all this people? Or did I give birth to them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat so that we may eat!’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people by myself, because it is too burdensome for me. 15 So if You are going to deal with me this way, please kill me now, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my misery.”
The smitten rock: In Numbers 20, Moses allowed his anger at the people to get the better of him … Moses struck the rock - instead of speaking to the rock as God had instructed him - to bring forth water from the rock. … “But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Since you did not trust in Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, for that reason you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.’ ” Why does God deal so severely here with Moses after all Moses has been through with Israel?
Because the rock was Christ, and God must be shown to be holy in the sight of the sons of Israel. … As St Paul writes in I Corinthians 10: 4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
** Note that the Rock that Israel drank “followed” them. Is this rock become something akin to a mobile water fountain? The water-from-the-rock incident occurred twice in the OT: once at the beginning of the wilderness period (Exodus 17) and again toward the end of the 40-year period (Numbers 20). Is this one and the same rock? Paul refers to Jesus not just as “the rock” but “the accompanying or following rock.”