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Patriarchs and Prophets
the murmuring at Kadesh been promptly checked, what a train of evil
might have been prevented!
By his rash act Moses took away the force of the lesson that God
purposed to teach. The rock, being a symbol of Christ, had been once
smitten, as Christ was to be once offered. The second time it was
needful only to speak to the rock, as we have only to ask for blessings
in the name of Jesus. By the second smiting of the rock the significance
of this beautiful figure of Christ was destroyed.
More than this, Moses and Aaron had assumed power that belongs
only to God. The necessity for divine interposition made the occasion
one of great solemnity, and the leaders of Israel should have improved
it to impress the people with reverence for God and to strengthen their
faith in His power and goodness. When they angrily cried, “Must we
fetch you water out of this rock?” they put themselves in God’s place,
as though the power lay with themselves, men possessing human
frailties and passions. Wearied with the continual murmuring and
rebellion of the people, Moses had lost sight of his Almighty Helper,
and without the divine strength he had been left to mar his record by
an exhibition of human weakness. The man who might have stood
pure, firm, and unselfish to the close of his work had been overcome at
last. God had been dishonored before the congregation of Israel, when
He should have been magnified and exalted.
God did not on this occasion pronounce judgments upon those
whose wicked course had so provoked Moses and Aaron. All the
reproof fell upon the leaders. Those who stood as God’s representatives
had not honored Him . Moses and Aaron had felt themselves aggrieved,
losing sight of the fact that the murmuring of the people was not against
them but against God. It was by looking to themselves, appealing to
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their own sympathies, that they unconsciously fell into sin, and failed
to set before the people their great guilt before God.
Bitter and deeply humiliating was the judgment immediately pro-
nounced. “The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed
Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore
ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given
them.” With rebellious Israel they must die before the crossing of
the Jordan. Had Moses and Aaron been cherishing self-esteem or
indulging a passionate spirit in the face of divine warning and reproof,
their guilt would have been far greater. But they were not chargeable