Repeating the Mistakes of the Past

An old saying tells us, “Those who don’t remember the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.” Along similar lines some define expert as someone who recognizes his mistakes when he makes them again. Many of us can relate to this concept: we don’t remember the mistakes of our past well enough to avoid making them again, but they certainly begin to look familiar after we have made them for the second or third or umpteenth time. Whether it is failing to measure the materials accurately before we cut them for a hobby project or failing to be consistent in disciplining our children, we all have areas in our lives where we live out the adage, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history” (Hegel). In that experience we have a great deal in common with ancient Israel. They too consistently failed to learn from their experience.

By Numbers 20 we have nearly reached the end of the wilderness wanderings: the events recorded here took place in the fortieth year after the Israelites started out (see 33:38). So what had they learned in the course of those forty years? The sad answer, at least for the older generation, was, virtually nothing. If there had been an exit exam for leaving the wilderness, as there is in California for leaving high school, these people would have been doomed to wander there forever.


BACK TO THE FUTURE

This failure to learn is highlighted by the fact that the primary event recorded in Numbers 20, the miraculous provision of water from the rock, was a mirror image of a similar event that had taken place in the very first year of their wandering (Exodus 17). That previous event is one of several backdrops against which we need to see this passage. At that first occasion in the wilderness of Sin (a similar sounding, yet different location from that in 20:1), the people quarreled with Moses and put the Lord to the test because there was no water for them to drink (Exodus 17:2, 3). They charged Moses with bringing the people out of Egypt simply to make them die of thirst in the wilderness (v. 3). However, on that occasion the Lord instructed Moses to bring the people to the rock at Horeb and to strike the rock there; water would flow from the rock for the people to drink (Exodus 17:6). In that first test Moses did exactly what the Lord told him to do, and the needs of the people were graciously met (Exodus 17:6).

That brief recap enables us to see what was still the same and what was new forty years later. The people’s quarrel with Moses was the same on the surface, but now it was amplified by the resuscitation of all of their intervening grumbles. Though the presenting problem for the people was once again the lack of water, their complaint was far more wide-ranging than that. In counseling terminology this is called gunnysacking. Perhaps a husband offends his spouse by failing to pick up his socks, which she has legitimately asked him to do every other week for the past ten years or so. Or perhaps the wife forgot to pick up her husband’s favorite suit from the dry cleaners as she had promised. Once the argument ensues, though, instead of focusing on the specific issue under dispute, all kinds of unresolved grievances emerge. One spouse inundates the other with every single one of his or her failings that he or she has carefully been saving up over the last six months, from the time she ran over the neighborcat to his habit of failing to put the lid back on the milk. The result is that instead of a limited argument over a minor issue, the couple ends up with a full-scale war because now they are dealing with six months’ worth of issues all at once.

In the same way, in this case the Israelites’ real problem was that they had nothing to drink, but once the Complaints Department was open for business, everything and anything was fair game. They repeated the complaint they had made when Moses had first brought them and their livestock into the wilderness—that he had led them there to die (Exodus 17:3), but now with an added edge. Now it was directed at Moses and Aaron together: “Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?” (20:4, 5). That complaint has a familiar ring to it because it combines the charge made against Moses and Aaron by Dathan and Abiram in 16:13 (“Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness?”) with that of the people as a whole in 16:41 (“You have killed the people of the LORD”). In fact, the people now identified themselves explicitly as kindred spirits with Dathan and Abiram and the other rebels when they said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD!” (20:3).3 In spite of the Lord’s grace to them as seen in the last three chapters, they declared that they would rather have died with those who had rebelled against the Lord.

Nor was it simply the sin of Numbers 16, 17 that was being recapitulated. The people also blamed Moses and Aaron quite unfairly for the consequences of their own choices. In chapter 14 they chose to believe the spies’ “bad” or “evil” (rāʿâ) report concerning the Promised Land (v. 37) and so refused to enter it, in spite of the positive evidence that the spies had brought back of its fruitfulness in the shape of grapes, pomegranates, and figs (13:23). Now, however, they charged Moses and Aaron with bringing them out of Egypt to an “evil” (rā) place (v. 5), the same word that the spies had used to characterize the Promised Land. They were frustrated because the wilderness had no grain or vines or fig trees or pomegranates—the very fruit the spies brought back with them from Canaan (13:23). In other words, the people were blaming Moses and Aaron because the wilderness was not like the Promised Land that the people themselves had refused to enter!

Two familiar patterns of sin in their complaint are problems for us as well: catastrophizing and blame-shifting. Catastrophizing means that we paint our situation in far darker colors than is really warranted. Was their situation in the wilderness really a fate worse than death by fire (v. 3)? They may have been thirsty and missing some of their favorite foods, but the Lord had supplied those needs before, and he could do it again. They weren’t really as bad off as they alleged—and often neither are we. Isn’t it amazing how full of woe we can be while we are still healthy, surrounded by a family that loves us, with a roof over our heads? If we lack anything, is it too hard for the Lord to supply what we need? Instead of catastrophizing and anticipating the worst, we need to take our concerns to the Lord and trust in his goodness and power to provide for us in the situation.


THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR CHOICES

Yet if the Lord is able to provide for our need, why doesn’t he keep us out of difficulty in the first place? One answer that we often do not want to face up to is that we may be there as a result of our own wrong choices. God is sovereign over all things, even over my sinful choices, and sometimes he chooses to let me suffer the consequences of my sinfulness so that I may learn something of their true impact. When that happens, though, instead of repenting and accepting responsibility for my actions, I often exhibit the fact that my heart has a blame-retardant coating. Never mind what I did, this problem must surely be someone else’s fault. I cry, “Lord, how could you let me end up in this terrible situation?” even though “this situation” is exactly where my own decisions and actions have logically brought me.

This is a trend that started all the way back in the Garden of Eden, with the woman blaming the serpent and the man blaming the woman and also God for giving her to him (Genesis 3:12, 13). Instead of blame-shifting, we need to take responsibility for our own actions and recognize that whatever our present situation, the Lord has always been far more gracious and merciful to us than we could possibly deserve. He never allows us to suffer in full measure the fate we truly deserve, and he always has good purposes for us in our trials, whatever our present difficulties may be.


THE RESPONSE OF MOSES AND AARON

However, unlike Exodus 17, the main focus of Numbers 20 is not the sin of the people in grumbling against the Lord, serious though that is. The main focus here is the response of Moses and Aaron to that complaint. They started out well enough, falling down before the Lord and receiving his instructions (v. 6), just as they had with the people’s previous complaints (16:4, 45). In response to their intercession, the Lord said to them:

Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle. (v. 8)

These instructions are clear enough, and the first two steps were carried out correctly: Moses took the staff from before the Lord, and he and Aaron gathered the people together, just as the Lord had commanded him (vv. 9, 10). However, this is where the obedience stops.4 Instead of bringing water from the rock by the simple expedient of speaking to it, as he had been commanded, Moses launched into an impromptu speech to the people and then struck the rock, not once but twice (vv. 10, 11). Both of these acts were problematic, and together they show us that Moses too had been caught up in the people’s sinful mind-set, even while he was ostensibly doing what the Lord told him to do.

First, there was his speech: “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” (v. 10). There were two problems in this brief sentence. On the one hand, he termed the people “rebels.” You might say, “Well, that is what they were.” That is true. However, the problem is that Moses was putting himself in the place of judge to make that declaration though the Lord had not authorized him to do so. The Lord told him to extend his mercy and grace to the people in giving them water in a way that demonstrated unequivocally that the source was God; instead, Moses set himself up as their judge.

Not only did Moses set himself up as the people’s judge, he also set himself (and Aaron) up as their deliverers. He said, “shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” (v. 10). Then he struck the rock twice, as if it were his action that brought forth the water. Who provided water from the rock for the people? It was the Lord, of course. In his frustration with the people, Moses was drawn into the same mind-set they had, forgetting the Lord’s presence and power and acting as if everything were up to him. Moses presented himself as if he were a pagan magician with the ability to manipulate the gods to do his bidding.

There is more to Moses’ sin than mere self-exaltation though. In the first encounter with the rock in Exodus 17, it was clear that the rock represented God himself (compare Genesis 49:24; Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 78:35). There the Lord allowed himself to be put on trial, standing before Israel, instead of putting them on trial for their complaining. In that awesome picture of grace, the Lord was willing to be struck himself instead of his rebellious people, so that they might receive life-giving water. It is one thing to strike God when he instructs you to do so; it is quite another to smite him (twice!) on your own authority. Moses’ act was thus nothing short of a direct assault on God himself.

In setting himself up as judge and deliverer of the people, Moses was demonstrating that he too had failed to learn from the past. That same self-exalting attitude was exactly what he had demonstrated when he first recognized the plight of his people when he was living as a prince in Pharaoh’s court. At that time, Moses saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite, and he intervened and killed the Egyptian (Exodus 2:11, 12). The next day he saw two of his fellow Israelites fighting and tried to rebuke the one who was in the wrong. The man’s response was, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us?” (Exodus 2:14). In other words, as a youth in Egypt Moses had been trying to judge and deliver his people in his own strength without a commission from the Lord. That attempt had ended in abject failure. Now, many years later, Moses had reverted once again to that old pattern of self-trust, judging the people in his own wisdom and trying to deliver them through his own acts, with similar results.


BEATING THE SHEEP

Certainly Moses is not the only one who has ever been guilty of judging people or trying to deliver them on his own. It is a common temptation for those in leadership in the church to become frustrated when the sheep don’t want to follow their shepherds. It is easy for us to judge them, whether privately in our own hearts or publicly in our sermons, berating them for their lack of vision. Sometimes the problem is that we, the shepherds, are trying to make them jump through the hoops of the latest ministry fashion or leadership fad, which the sheep have far too much sense to be caught up in. At other times we are seeking to lead them in good directions, challenging their comfortable inertia and urging them to move out in fresh obedience, and the sheep are simply being stubborn in their refusal to follow our lead. Either way, though, we can easily end up substituting law for grace and guilt for gratitude as the motivation for their obedience.

We can even do the same thing with ourselves. When we respond to our own sin by beating ourselves and judging ourselves as worthless people, we are acting as if we are our own judges. When we despair of ourselves in our ongoing struggle with sin, we are acting as if we are our own deliverers. What matters, however, is not how we judge ourselves but how God the Father judges us—and he declares us “Not guilty,” for Jesus’ sake. In spite of our sin, he calls us “saint” and “my child,” because he sees us through Jesus and has committed himself to deliver us to himself holy and pure on the last day. It is his verdict that counts, not our own, and he is our gracious judge and faithful deliverer.

It is worth noticing that in Numbers 20, even though the people were clearly at fault in their complaining, the Lord viewed the sin of Moses and Aaron in judging them as a far more serious infraction. In other words, even when the sheep are simply being stubborn and recalcitrant in not following our leadership, we are not called to beat and berate them, even in our own minds. Instead, we are to love them and keep on urging them forward, gently and persistently pointing them to the cross.

In truth, much of our frustration in ministry comes from the fact that we have begun to see ourselves as the functional saviors of ourselves and our people. Remembering that it is the sovereign Lord who is saving and sanctifying us, and not we ourselves, will deliver us from much of our frustration. The Holy Spirit is the one who is responsible for transforming his sheep, and he will do so according to his agenda, not ours. We want ourselves and our people to be “fixed” right now, in part because it would give us a sense of personal satisfaction and achievement. We would then be able to bask in the glory of our renovation, feeding our pride and sense of self-worth. The Holy Spirit, however, is not eager to share his glory. He bears his fruit in the lives of his people in his season, not ours, so that it may be clearly seen that the work is entirely of him.


REBELLING AGAINST THE LORD

The irony is that in judging the people and seeking to deliver them on their own, Moses and Aaron became exactly what they accused the people of being: rebels against the Lord. When it was time for Aaron’s death at the end of the chapter, the Lord recalled their actions at Meribah and said, “Both of you rebelled against my command” (v. 24, NIV). The same was true when it came time for Moses to pass on the leadership of Israel to Joshua (27:14). In setting themselves forward as the people’s judges and deliverers, Moses and Aaron publicly displayed their own failure to believe in and fear the Lord as a holy God (v. 12). Because of this lack of faith, they too were now excluded from entry into the Promised Land. Like the rest of the first generation, Moses and Aaron would die in the desert, yet more object lessons of the holiness of Israel’s God

The sin of Moses and Aaron was thus itself a recapitulation of the sin of the people in Numbers 13, 14 when they refused to enter the Promised Land. What Joshua had warned the people not to do (“Do not rebel against the LORD,” 14:9) was exactly what Moses and Aaron now did (v. 24). The Lord’s complaint about the people then would fit Moses and Aaron as well: “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” (14:11). Little wonder, then, that their punishment was the same as that entire generation: those who rebelled against the Lord through a lack of faith would never enter the land, no matter who they were.

In essence, most of our sins boil down to a functional failure to believe God. In theory, we believe that God is our rock and our refuge; in practice, however, we often act as if God doesn’t even exist. Why do we judge people and write them off as hopeless? It is because in practice we do not really believe that God can rescue and redeem them. Why do we get so angry and frustrated when our spouses and our families disappoint us? It is because we don’t really believe that God is their judge, and we aren’t willing to let their sanctification rest in the Lord’s hands. Why are we so fearful for our own future? It is because we don’t really believe that the Lord will deliver us at the critical moment. Why are we so angry with God at the way our lives have turned out? It is because we don’t believe he has our best interests at heart or that there is more to life than what we see around us in this world. We are condemned by our failure to believe in the Lord as rebels against his goodness, just like Moses and Aaron and an entire generation of the ancient Israelites.


THE ENCOUNTER WITH EDOM

The parallels between Moses’ and Aaron’s failure to believe in the Lord and the failure of the people to do the same thing in Numbers 13, 14 help us see the significance of the enigmatic encounter with Edom that follows the events at Meribah (vv. 14–21). Moses sought to travel east from Kadesh, through the territory of the Edomites, but his request for passage was opposed by force and ended up in retreat. What we see here seems to be Moses doing exactly the same thing that the people did when they heard the Lord’s judgment upon them: refusing to accept that judgment and attempting to force their way into the land in their own strength (see 14:39–45).

Notice that the Lord did not instruct Moses to take this route, nor is the Lord’s name mentioned in the account, except in passing (v. 16). This is in dramatic contrast with the conflict that we will see at the beginning of the next chapter (21:1–3), when the people sought the Lord before going into battle and received victory from the Lord. When Israel’s first request was rebuffed by Edom, they sought to resolve the matter through political negotiations rather than through prayer. If the Lord had been with Moses and the people in this endeavor, it would not have mattered that Edom came out against them with a large army; but without the Lord’s presence they had no power to prevail over those who opposed them (vv. 20, 21). Like the earlier abortive campaign of the people, Moses’ attempt to find a shortcut into blessing ended up in a blind alley.


THE WAGES OF REBELLION

Numbers 20 thus shows us the judgment of the Lord on the wilderness generation reaching its climax in judgment on their leaders. Moses and Aaron joined the rebels in their sin and paid the same price as they did—exclusion from the land. The fact that the wages of rebellion is death for leaders as well as for followers is highlighted by the deaths that bracket the chapter: it began with the death of Miriam at Kadesh (v. 1) and ended with the death of Aaron (vv. 22–29). It was actually unbelief and rebellion that threatened death in the wilderness, not a lack of water.

Aaron’s death was announced ahead of time by the Lord: he was to go up Mount Hor with his brother Moses and his son Eleazar, where he would die (vv. 25, 26). There he was to be stripped of his robes of office, which were then to be transferred to his son (v. 26). This was more than a mere rite of transfer from father to son. The language of stripping implies that a measure of degradation was involved. To go along with the judgment of not being allowed to enter the Promised Land, Aaron was being stripped of his office as high priest, which from now on would be his son’s responsibility.

This time we are told that Moses did exactly as the Lord commanded him. The earlier disobedience that took place in the sight of the whole community (v. 12) was at last replaced by obedience in the sight of the whole community (v. 27). The high-priestly baton was transferred from one generation to the next, and the whole congregation mourned Aaron’s passing (v. 29). The old generation was fading away, their epitaph the words of Psalm 90, the only psalm written by Moses:
 
  You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
  like grass that is renewed in the morning:
  in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
  in the evening it fades and withers.
  For we are brought to an end by your anger;
  by your wrath we are dismayed.
  You have set our iniquities before you,
  our secret sins in the light of your presence.
  For all our days pass away under your wrath;
  we bring our years to an end like a sigh. (vv. 5–9)


SIGNS OF GRACE

In the midst of the death and disgrace that so dominate Numbers 20, it would be easy to overlook the positive signs of the Lord’s grace that it contains. Even though Moses and Aaron sinned in carrying out the Lord’s command and received a curse, the Lord nonetheless granted his rebellious people the flow of water that they needed. Even though Moses would not lead the people into the land, yet the Lord’s promise to grant the land to them still stood, and he would raise up Joshua to take Moses’ place. Even though Aaron was now dead, the next generation was ready to take up his priestly work through his son, Eleazar. In fact, the deaths of Miriam and Aaron in this chapter in some ways mark the beginning of a generational transition. Even though the definitive turning point of the census of the next generation is still six chapters away, from the beginning of Numbers 21 things started to look up for Israel. The Lord is not only far more gracious than we believe him to be—he is far more gracious than we deserve.

On what is your trust for the present and your hope for the future built? You might think that a leadership team of Moses, Miriam, and Aaron would be a tough combination to improve upon, but by the end of this chapter their story is effectively over: they are dying, dead, and dead. We need a better leader than Moses, someone who will not get frustrated with his people and judge them. We need someone who will show his people grace and effectively deliver them in their hour of need. The good news of the gospel is that a leader who is better than Moses has come in the person of Jesus. The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus Christ was actually part of this story in Numbers 20: he was the spiritual rock that accompanied his people through the wilderness and from which they drank (1 Corinthians 10:4). In Jesus Christ, God himself took the blows that we deserved for our rebellion. He is the righteous High Priest who was stripped not because of any failure on his part but to enable him to take our place on the cross under God’s curse. From him flows the living water that we need to slake our thirsty souls and to transform our lives increasingly into his image.

The wages of sin is death. This chapter demonstrates clearly the fact that this was true for Miriam, for Aaron, and ultimately for Moses as well. This is equally true for us all: we all have our own besetting sins to which we return, which are simply the outward overflow of our inner unbelief. It may be an uncontrolled temper or a sharp tongue or a lustful heart. It may be a complaining attitude or judgmental pride. Whatever it is, such sin marks us out as rebels against God. Like Moses and Aaron, we are all rebels who deserve death. Yet in Christ there is an answer for our rebellion. In Christ we have someone who has taken the death that we deserved and has paid fully for our sins. His perfect obedience is now credited to our account, exactly as if it were our own. In him we are justified freely right now, sinners though we are. In that reality lies our hope, our peace, and our comfort in the weary wilderness.

How long, then, will you and I refuse to believe in this God who has so wonderfully demonstrated his love for us in so many ways? How long will we trust in ourselves and judge others? How long will we become angry and frustrated over our own lack of sanctification and the failures of others? We must look to the Lord and submit our hearts to him, trusting in his goodness and mercy, believing that his timing is perfect, being filled with thankfulness for his death and resurrection. We must ask God to teach us wisdom and patience, grace and gentleness, and, above all, love. The day will come when our earthly struggles and rebellions will be over, and the Lord will welcome us into his presence; then all our frustrations will finally be over. Until then, the good news of his gospel of grace will faithfully sustain our thirsty souls step by step along the way.

Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 249–258). Crossway Books.