The Children of Israel have now been consigned to the wilderness for 40 years. Readers who paid close attention would have seen this foreshadowed in Exodus 16: “And they ate Manna for forty years…” But it was not the LORD who had failed them. Neither was it Moses and Aaron. But as we’ll see today, the community needs someone on which to take out their frustrations – and that someone is usually the leader.

In chapters 16 and 17 we find one of the most raw passages that we’ve seen thus far, reminiscent of the succession of plagues in Exodus. Israel’s complaints become more and more unhinged, the LORD’s anger against them grows more and more fierce, and Moses’ and Aaron’s efforts to stand between them become more and more desperate.

Now it’s important to separate what you know from what the Children of Israel knew. They weren’t present in the Tent of Meeting when the LORD’s anger burned after the Golden Calf. They also didn’t see Moses stand up for the Israelites, as the LORD threatened to wipe them out just two chapters ago. You know from Exodus 33 how the LORD “speaks to Moses…as a man speaks to his friend,” and from Numbers 12 that the author believes Moses to be “more meek than all people who were on the face of the earth.”

But there is plenty that the Israelites do know that makes their rebellion incomprehensible. It was Moses and Aaron who stood before Pharaoh, and they alone who have been summoned to the Tent of Meeting. When Moses raised his staff before the Red Sea, it parted. When he raised his staff over the Amalekites, they were defeated. When Moses spoke to the rock, it produced water; when he promised food, it fell from the sky. When Aaron offered the atoning sacrifice, fire leapt from the Holy Place and consumed it.

Yet Korah, and Dothan, and Abiram are fed up with Moses and Aaron’s leadership: “Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” they ask. You will feel the author’s anger as their accusation that “You have gone too far!” gets rebounded against them. You will surely hear the irony as they cry that Moses has “brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness…” And you can do what you want with the Israelites who grumble that the rebels were treated unfairly. Ironically, Moses’ and Aaron’s role in protecting them becomes more and more visible with each cycle of complaint.

Through it all, remember that this Bible is about the LORD. What do we learn about Him here, and how does it fit into what we already know?

Our verse for this week is 1 Corinthians 10:4: “And all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

Numbers chapters 16 and 17. Now let’s read it!

Day 49 Guided Podcast