The End of Grumbling

Some things never seem to end. A Wagnerian opera, for example, seems to go on and on. So does a root canal visit to the dentist, or a losing season for your favorite sports team. To that list of seemingly endless trials, we may add the sin of grumbling. In an earlier study we noticed that grumbling is a contagious sickness that spreads from one person to the next. Here we may add that grumbling is a chronic sickness: it is habit-forming and addictive. Once started, if left to itself, grumbling just goes on and on. In C. S. Lewis’s novel The Great Divorce, he imagines a group of inhabitants from Hell on a coach trip to visit the outskirts of Heaven. One of the memorable characters he describes is a woman who started out as a grumbler and ended up as a mere grumble. Lewis’s guide on the tour, George MacDonald, says of this phenomenon:

It begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticizing it. And yourself, in a dark hour may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no more you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.

We all know that to be true from our own experience, don’t we? Grumbling has enormous capacity to capture us in its power. How then can we cure grumbling? How can we finally break its power and emerge from its grip? You might think that simply exposing the truth would do the trick. If so, then you need to think again. In Numbers 16 we saw those who brought a complaint against Moses’ and Aaron’s leadership incinerated by fire from the Lord and swallowed alive by the ground. You would imagine that such a visible demonstration of the Lord’s power in support of Moses and Aaron would bring the issue to an end. Not so. Even though the ringleaders and their families were consumed by God’s judgment, their grumbling spirit lived on after them. Like spores of the anthrax virus, which have the ability to survive fire and flood, lying dormant in the soil for centuries before emerging to do their deadly work, the spores of the grumbling virus survived the dramatic judgment of God.


THE RETURN OF GRUMBLING

It didn’t even take long for the virus of grumbling to reappear. The very next day all of the congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the LORD” (16:41). That short sentence incorporates both aspects of the rebellion of the last chapter. Dathan and Abiram’s complaint against Moses totally denied the existence and relevance of the Lord, charging Moses personally with bringing Israel out of Egypt in order to kill them in the desert (16:13, 14). Now the whole congregation echoed that charge by blaming Moses and Aaron personally for the deaths of the conspirators (16:41).2 Even though these deaths were the result of dramatic judgments from God—fire from Heaven and the earth swallowing people alive—the people acted as if the Lord were not really involved and the deaths were solely the result of the actions of Moses and Aaron.

Similarly, Korah’s complaint against Aaron was that the whole community was equally holy and that the Lord was with them all (16:3). This claim was visibly disproved by God’s removing Korah’s associates from his presence once and for all (16:35). They were rejected and destroyed as unfit to burn incense before a holy God. Yet these same rebels who had died under the Lord’s judgment were now described by the community as “the people of the LORD.” It is as if they were asserting all over again that the whole community (even those who were destroyed for their sin) were really all one holy people. They said to the Lord in effect, “God, you have no business judging sin. Get over your narrow-mindedness and accept all of us just as we are.” Doesn’t that charge against God have a terribly modern ring to it? The spirit of the southside rebellion lives on in our contemporary context.

Once again, although the complaint is directed against Moses and Aaron, the people are not really grumbling against them so much as they are against the Lord. It is no surprise therefore that the Lord himself appears in the cloud over the tabernacle to answer their charge (16:42). Because it is the same rebellious charge as in the previous incident, the Lord responds in exactly the same way to Moses and Aaron: “Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment” (16:45; see 16:20). Once again Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the Lord, interceding on behalf of the people.


STANDING BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

It is at this point, however, that the story line diverges from the earlier incident. In this case, apart from Moses and Aaron, there were no innocent bystanders who risked destruction along with the sinners (16:22). The whole assembly had joined in the sin of rebellion, and therefore all had to face the Lord’s judgment. There was no separation between guilty and innocent in the plague that ensued, for all were guilty. However, the community’s survival was still secured because Aaron, the high priest, was an effective mediator to intercede for the sinners. The incense-offering priestly pretenders of Korah’s line had been consumed by the fire of God’s wrath the previous day (16:35). Their mediation could not even save themselves, let alone anyone else. Aaron, however, had been called by the Lord to this task of providing a remedy for sin and was granted the necessary access into God’s presence. Thus when he intervened, offering incense and interceding on behalf of the people, the plague was restrained (16:48). Aaron took up a position between the living and the dead, and by means of the incense that he offered, he drew a line of separation between the two groups. By his faithful ministry, he prevented those who remained alive from joining those already dead.

Once again we see the covenantal dimension of salvation. The faithful acts of the one man carrying out the task appointed by God had a life-giving impact on the fate of many. All are not equally holy, equally able to approach God, as Korah had claimed. Only God’s chosen priestly representative for the community, Aaron, could offer the intercession that turned away God’s wrath and halted the spread of the plague (16:48).

There is a challenge here for all of us. Under the new covenant, we have all been given the task of being ambassadors for Christ, bringing the aroma of the gospel to those around us (2 Corinthians 2:14–16). We have all been commissioned to intercede on behalf of our friends and neighbors and to set before them the line between life and death. Aaron could not perform his ministry in the comfortable confines of the tabernacle, however. He had to take the incense offering out to where the people were dying for it to be effective. This was a risky endeavor for a priest, for it carried with it the potential of being contaminated by touching a corpse. Such contact would have rendered Aaron ritually unclean. Yet he took the risk of encountering death for the sake of preserving some alive. Our calling of spreading the aroma of life will similarly require us not to huddle in little circles of believers but to take the risk of going out to where the spiritually dead are. It is our task to release the gospel freely so it can do its work of separating those called to life and those left alone in death. In that way, many may be delivered from God’s judgment upon sin and rebellion. We need to have a sense of the urgency of the gospel task, knowing that our friends and neighbors, our workmates and our fellow students, are quite literally dying for want of hearing the gospel.


THE END OF GRUMBLING

It is one thing to restrain God’s judgment, however, and quite another to bring it completely to an end. The plague may have ceased for now, as a result of Aaron’s intercession, but the threat of its return still remains over the people. In fact, before the book of Numbers is over, the Lord’s judgment of plague will again return to haunt the people (see 25:8, 9). What Israel needed was someone or something that would bring to an end the grumbling and rebellious spirit of the people once and for all. It is this need that is addressed in Numbers 17. On the one hand, it seems like a simple repetition of the lesson of the previous chapter, underscoring the choice of Aaron and the Levites out of all of God’s people to approach and serve him. Yet the goal of this positive sign is more ambitious than simply restricting the effects of the curse. By what this sign signifies, the Lord twice declares that he will bring to an end this constant grumbling by the Israelites (17:5, 10).

The sign itself is simple enough. The leaders of all twelve of the tribes of Israel, plus the tribe of Levi, are to submit their staffs to Moses (17:6).4 These staffs were symbols of authority and may well have been instantly identifiable by their distinctive shape or markings,5 though each man is told to write his name on the staff as well (17:2; compare the similar sign in Ezekiel 37:16, 17). Using their staffs was by no means a random choice of personal possession, since the Hebrew word for “staff” (maṭṭeh) also means “tribe.” These staffs thus self-evidently represented the various tribes of God’s people. The Lord declared that as these staffs were placed overnight before the Lord in the tabernacle, one of these dead sticks would sprout (17:5). In fact, the fulfillment of the sign was even greater than that: Aaron’s staff not only sprouted but budded, blossomed, and produced almonds (17:8). When the staffs were returned to their owners the next day, the evidence was undeniable. The Lord had definitively demonstrated whom he had chosen to serve him and stand in his presence (17:9).6 After the tribal leaders had each reclaimed his staff, the Lord instructed Moses to keep Aaron’s staff as a permanent sign to the rebellious people to put an end to their grumbling, so they would not die (17:10).

Why is God so bothered by grumbling? It seems on the face of it to be a victimless crime: when we grumble, it seems that no one is robbed or hurt. So why is grumbling a sin worthy of death? The answer is because grumbling robs and hurts God. Grumbling assaults God’s glory. John Piper has rightly argued that God is most glorified when his people are most satisfied in him.7 If that is true, though, what happens when his people are most dissatisfied with him? He is robbed of his greatest glory. When God’s people grumble, they miss out on their chief end in life: as long as they are grumbling, they are neither glorifying God nor enjoying him. In addition, grumbling believers give non-Christians little reason to want to join them. When we grumble against the order that God has set in place, we are robbing God of the praise and glory that is his due, holding our hearts closed against him, and distracting others from seeing his greatness. That is why grumbling is such a serious sin.


THE STAFF AND THE LAMPSTAND

How, though, was this simple sign in Numbers 17 supposed to put an end to their grumbling? To answer that question, we need to look at the sign more closely. It is not simply a sign that God had chosen Aaron and the Levites to serve him—it was a sign of his purpose in calling Aaron and the Levites to serve him. If God had wanted simply to indicate that Aaron’s staff was the chosen one, he could have had it emerge and stand upright while the other staffs bowed down to it. What actually happened was that the apparently dead staff showed incredible signs of fruitfulness—sprouting, budding, blossoming, and bearing fruit overnight. Moreover, the fruit that this little tree produced was not just any fruit but specifically almonds.

Where else in Scripture do you find a miniature tree with almond flowers and buds? That is exactly what the lampstand in the tabernacle was (Exodus 25:31–40). It was a stylized tree with symbols of fruitfulness on it. This tree with buds, blossoms, and flowers all at the same time was a static picture of the whole cycle of life under God’s blessing, nothing less than an image of the tree of life.8 The symbolic function of the lampstand was to shine God’s favor forward onto the Table with the twelve loaves of showbread (see the discussion of Numbers 8:1–4 in Chapter 10 of this book), which symbolized God’s favor and blessing resting on all twelve of the tribes of Israel.

The lampstand was not just any fruitful tree—it was specifically an almond tree. The Hebrew word for almond (šāqēd) is related to the verb “to watch” (šāqad), for the almond tree blossoms early and was thus a marker of the onset of spring. Thus in Jeremiah 1:11 the Lord used an almond branch as a visible symbol of the Lord’s watching over his word (in this case of judgment) and bringing it to imminent fulfillment. So too the lampstand as an almond tree was a marker of the certain fulfillment of a greater blessing that was yet to come. The Lord was watching over his people for blessing, both now and in greater measure in the future.


THE BUDDING OF AARON’S STAFF

With that as background, we can return to the budding of Aaron’s staff. The Lord took Aaron’s dead stick and turned it into a miniature lampstand in the midst of the other twelve sticks, a sign of life and future blessing in the midst of the community. This blooming almond branch was a symbol of the certainty that the Lord would fulfill his promise of great blessing for his people through the gift of the priesthood. That is why the sign should have put an end to the grumbling of the rebellious (17:10). It should have reminded them that the Aaronic priesthood was God’s chosen channel of blessing and life for the community in the present and a sign of an even greater blessing to come.

Ironically, the Israelites responded to this demonstration of beauty and life with the fear of death. They said to Moses, “Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone. Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the LORD, shall die. Are we all to perish?” (17:12, 13). In one sense they got the message. Their cry was a repudiation of their earlier assertion that all are holy and can safely approach the presence of God. Now they rightly feared approaching God. Yet they failed to see that this holy God whom they could not approach had graciously established a means in the Aaronic priesthood through which sinners could safely approach God and not die (17:10). God’s purpose for his people was resolutely good: his goal for their lives was not death but life. They needed to wake up and smell the sweet scent of almond blossoms: in spite of their rebellion, the Lord was watching over them for blessing.

There is a profound lesson for you and me in the blossoming of Aaron’s staff. In the first place, like the Israelites we need to see that by ourselves we are unfit to stand in the presence of a holy God. We are nothing more than dead sticks, fit only for the fire. Without God’s promise of grace we too would be forced to cry out, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the presence of the Lord will die.” We are not by nature holy or naturally part of the Lord’s people. We are dead in our transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1), without hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). Yet the Lord is able to take dead sticks and bring them to life and make them fruitful under his blessing.

How did he do that? Ultimately it was not through Aaron and his line. Aaron was a great blessing to his people, an intercessor whose incense offering halted God’s judgment in its tracks and made a separation between the living and the dead. Yet Aaron himself was a sinner, ultimately unable to enter the Promised Land. His offspring faithfully served as priests, offering sacrifices on behalf of the people and teaching them God’s Law. Yet all of their ministry was provisional, temporary, until the coming of God’s new covenant in Jesus Christ. Aaron’s blossoming staff pointed beyond himself and his offspring to the Messiah to come. Jesus is the great High Priest who, through his personal holiness and ultimate sacrifice on the cross, enabled the blessing of God’s favor to be poured out on all of his chosen ones.


THROUGH DEATH TO FRUITFULNESS

Yet if Aaron’s staff was distinguished as the chosen one of God’s blessing through the marks of life and fruitfulness, Jesus was distinguished at the end of his earthly ministry as God’s chosen one by the signs of God’s curse.

  For he grew up before him like a young plant,
  and like a root out of dry ground;
  he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
  and no beauty that we should desire him.
  He was despised and rejected by men;
  a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
  and as one from whom men hide their faces
  he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
  Surely he has borne our griefs
  and carried our sorrows;
  yet we esteemed him stricken,
  smitten by God, and afflicted.
  But he was wounded for our transgressions;
  he was crushed for our iniquities;
  upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
  and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:2–5).

Jesus didn’t merely straddle the line between life and death; he himself entered the grip of death to free those who were rightfully death’s captives. He took upon himself Aaron’s curse, the curse deserved by all the rebels for their grumbling. It was not just their curse that he took, however. More importantly, it was my curse. I too am a rebel and a grumbler. I too question the Lord’s wisdom and his ways in choosing some for particular earthly service or blessing that he has not chosen to give to me. I too grumble about the judgments that he chooses to execute (or not to execute) on others. Yet Christ has taken all of those sins of mine and has borne them on the cross, despising their shame, so that I might ultimately taste the blessing that God has in store for his people. In Christ, God testified to his chosen priest with an absence of glory and a cursed death on the cross, so that through that death his unholy people might be made holy. In so doing, he removed the power and sting of death once and for all.

There at the cross we see the true wideness of God’s mercy. He does not admit all into his presence indiscriminately, ignoring their sin. Rather, he welcomes in all kinds of sinners as they trust in Christ and have their sins paid for at the cross. The way of salvation is as wide and as narrow as Christ. There at the cross, fearful rebels find peace with the Lord whom they spurned, in spite of their sin, and are safely drawn into intimate fellowship with him through Christ. Now, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, we are able to do what Old Testament believers could not: we can draw near to God’s presence with boldness. However, the self-righteous who stubbornly refuse to come to God through Jesus find no way into his life-giving presence.

What is more, in the resurrection of Jesus we see the almond branch blossom. Spring is in the air in the empty tomb: in Christ’s rising, the firstfruits of the harvest of eternal life have appeared, and their scent is unmistakable. Death is clearly defeated, its power broken. It is only a matter of time now before the full harvest of God’s blessing is experienced. God is watching over his people to bring them into his presence forever.

Here is the final answer for our grumbling. The Law that says, “Do not grumble” is not ultimately able to transform us and change our hearts. The Law can bring the judgment of death, which can restrain grumbling, but it cannot cure it. It has no power to redeem grumblers and bring their grumbling to a permanent end. Grumbling and rebellion can only be overcome as we contemplate the cross. As we look on the awesome judgment of God that took place there on all unrighteousness, will we still say, “All of God’s people are holy and can enter God’s presence just as they are”? Surely not. The cross demonstrates the necessity of the cleansing that only Jesus Christ can give.

When we think about the way the Lord dealt with his own Son in order to make us holy, will we murmur and rebel against his ways in our lives that have the same design? If he did not spare his own Son but freely gave him up so that we could receive blessing and life, how will he not along with him give us everything we need? When we see that the Lord’s purpose for us is blessing, a purpose that is assured in the resurrection of Jesus, why then do we still doubt his goodness? The Lord will accomplish his purpose to sanctify us, one way or another. Some of those ways are intensely painful, to be sure. Yet as we stand before the cross, are we really able to say to the Father, “No, Lord, this is too painful. I cannot bear this. It is too much”? How can anything be too much when it is compared to the searing loss that the Father endured at the cross to make us holy? As Samuel Rutherford put it, “The weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Saviour.”

We are so blessed in this new-covenant era, for we no longer have a mere sign of God’s commitment to bless us. We have something better than a flowering staff that sits mutely in front of the symbol of God’s presence, the ark of the covenant. That staff spoke eloquently of God’s set purpose to bless his people and transform their grumbling hearts. Yet how much more effective and eloquent is the reality to which the staff pointed. The reality that we have been given to ponder is our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, standing in the heavenly Holy of Holies, interceding for you and me day by day. In the death of Christ, God assures us of his settled purpose for our blessing. In the resurrection of Christ, he assures us that the almond is already in bloom: our final salvation is near. In Christ, the Lord has indeed put an end to our grumbling, and in its place he has given us abundant life in all its fullness. Faced with the reality of the cross and the empty tomb, may we let our grumbling die away, lost in an upswell of wonder, love, and praise.


Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 209–217). Crossway Books.