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NUMBERS 11–12; PSALMS 41–42

Week 8, Day 3

We expect so much from some experiences—adulthood, marriage, career, for instance—that when we come upon the hard places, we may not deal with them well. So it was with Israel and their freedom. There had been a certain kind of security in slavery that was missing in freedom, and Israel responded with murmuring.

This time their murmuring got the best of Moses. “Why have you treated your servant so badly?” he challenged God (11:11). When God promised a miracle, Moses answered in the fashion of the disciples when they found themselves with a hungry multitude (Luke 9:12-17). Although he had seen God’s provision in the past, his faith was a bit low just now.

But the more I see of Moses, the more I respect him. When God offers a remedy with a committee of seventy who will receive some of Moses’ spirit, Moses doesn’t cling to his power. And when Eldad and Medad begin to prophesy, Joshua is jealous for Moses; but Moses wishes only that “all the LORD’s people were prophets” (11:29). Then Moses is attacked by his own kin, Aaron and Miriam, and still he keeps a right spirit. When judgment falls on Miriam (since she alone was punished, it seems she led the way in this rebellion) and she is smitten with leprosy, Moses pleads to God on her behalf. Moses shows himself to be human enough but remarkably strong in an often thankless job.

PRAYER: If I, like Israel, complain of my life, hold me back from such murmuring as would destroy me; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

List, from these two chapters, the instances of Moses’ troubles or complaints and God’s ways of responding. What do you observe about people and about God?