February 16

February 16

Numbers 11–13

Scripture Text: Numbers 11:1–13:33

Series: Read the Bible in a Year

It has been a while, but the people are complaining again. We are not given many specifics — though it is generally about what goes in their bellies — but we do see some specifics about God's reaction to their murmuring. He is not happy; he is, in fact, angry and burns up some of the fringe of the camp. This may be purposeful, and not just in God holding back his anger by not destroying the whole camp.

It is on the fringes of the church where the rabble, the troublemakers, hide. There they complain that the leadership God has given is not doing things their way. They incite a few people to parrot their complaints, then insist "a lot of people are saying..." This is the way of churches stuck in the wilderness, just as it was the way of the ancient Israelites. 

So, God gave a wider leadership structure of elders to guide the people. In the church today, we do things by democracy instead. We have changing councils and committees who are elected by often family name, popularity, and business experience. In 50 years of ministry, I have yet to see someone considered for church office because of their prayer life, their biblical or theological acumen. One would think this especially needful on a congregation's Council. From where does their counsel come? "Well, I think" is often as good a counsel as you get. Well, I think we should have meat, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic too! 

Israel does not enter the promised land by their belly but by their heart. We should expect the same of the church. So, God gives the Israelites more meat than they could handle, so that it rots in the camp. Will the church understand through this teaching that the clamoring of the rabble must not drown out the will of the Lord?

If the church is anything like the ancient Israelites (and it is) then more compllaining and backstabbing might be expected. As it turns out, it is his own family that "stabs" Moses. His siblings, Aaron and Miriam, vie for leadership, using his marriage to a Cushite woman to suggest a lack in his ability or claim to be the chief leader of the people. This means that the high priest of the Israelites was now laying claim to a position God had not ordained. 

The Lord judges by causing Miriam to be leprous. This begs the question, why not Aaron too? The only reasonable answer is that would have made him unclean for service in the tabernacle. Miriam is put out of the camp for a week and cured.

The people moved on to the promised land and come within reach. They send spies into the land who come back with a single cluster of grapes that must have been large, as they carried it on a pole between two of the spies. One might imagine them saying, You think these grapes are huge? You ought to see the people! They're giants. Then they report on all the nations who surround them in the land, and insist they are not able to possess the land. 

Caleb has a different opinion.   

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