Numbers 20:12

THE SIN OF MOSES

‘And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.’

Numbers 20:12

I. The Lord here acts with great severity towards two of His servants, and it may be well to recount the circumstances. Water failed the congregation, they murmured as their fathers had done; Moses brought their case before the Lord, Who commanded him to take his rod, but not to use it, but simply to speak to the rock, and it should give forth water. Was this rock the same which was smitten nearly forty years before? That depends upon our interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10, ‘And they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.’ From the whole account we should gather that it was the same rock, and the miracle, of course, was not greater than the daily shower of bread round about their tents, which ceased not till they entered Canaan. Anyhow, they disobeyed God, Who had bidden them speak to the rock; and for this, and because, perhaps, they had spoken as if they themselves could bring out the water, ‘Hear now, ye rebels, must we bring you water out of the rock?’ And for this act of faithlessness or of disobedience God would not permit Moses, though he entreated that the punishment might be removed, to bring the people of Israel over Jordan.

II. The sin of Moses appears rather as a sin of disobedience or of passion than of unbelief; but if we knew all the circumstances we should see that there was some want of faith, of reliance upon God, which brought down God’s dipleasure.

III. Anyhow, we learn this lesson, that nearness to God and friendship with God, such as was enjoyed by Moses, are not to be presumed upon; God’s commands are to be obeyed to the letter even by one so near to Him as Moses. It has been suggested as another reason for this severity: the smitten rock was a type of Christ, Who was to be smitten once for all, and then to give out His virtue in answer to prayer, and Moses and Aaron, by smiting the rock a second time, destroyed the principal typical feature.

Rev. M. F. Sadler.

Illustration

(1) ‘Press home upon the imagination by the terrible doom of Moses the man of God, the heinousness in God’s sight of this spirit which puts judgment in place of mercy. It shut Moses out of the Promised Land; our Lord says it may shut us out of His kingdom. Compare the interesting parallel of Jonah’s failure to understand the heart of the Almighty (Jonah 3:10; Jonah 4:1), and quote, in illustration, the beautiful lines of Faber—

For the love of God is broader

Than the measures of man’s mind,

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.’

(2) ‘God’s charge against him, be it noted, is that he failed to sanctify Him, i.e. to make Him holy in the eyes of the people. When a professing Christian misrepresents Christ, by his conduct or spirit, so as to give a wrong view of the Gospel to his companions, it is a terrible sin in God’s sight. Compare the doom on the man who offends one of the little ones, i.e. puts a stumbling block in the way of their coming to Christ (Matthew 18:6).’