Numbers 12:3 says that Moses was “the humblest man alive,” but in the previous chapter he’d openly challenged Yahweh, and in what sounds like the most cheeky, disrespectful way too. So why did Yahweh put up with it if humility was so important to him?

Or put another way, because he did put up with it, does that mean he doesn’t mind us challenging him? But what is it about us – and about him – that allows that to happen?  

Well, in Exodus 33:13 Moses had asked Yahweh to “teach me your ways so I may know you,” which Yahweh clearly appreciated (17), so he did just that, he made known his ways. In what he taught Moses, then, we are given wonderful and detailed insight into the workings of the minds of both Yahweh and Moses, Numbers 11 being a real eye-opener. 

In verse 1, Yahweh is super ticked off by the Israelites “complaining about their hardships,” and wailing about wanting “meat to eat” rather than this boring, unappetizing manna every day (4-6). The wailing coming from every Israelite tent was so loud and persistent that it made Yahweh “exceedingly angry” (10). So Moses was now on the receiving end of the anger of both the Israelites and Yahweh.

“Troubled” by it (10), Moses gets personal with Yahweh: “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth?” In other words, why lump me with all these problems, when it wasn’t my idea to “nurse these people all the way to the land you promised”? (11-12). 

So here was the humblest man on earth openly and fearlessly challenging Yahweh, even bluntly asking him, “How on earth am I going to find meat for all these people? I can’t deal with all this by myself, it’s way too much for me. So if this is how you’re going to treat me, then put me to death right now” (13-15). 

This was a dark time for Moses. He was exhausted, frustrated and angry at the circumstances Yahweh had landed him in. But why didn’t his wailing “arouse Yahweh’s anger” like the wailing of the rest of the Israelites (1)? Because, verse 15, even in the depths of his despair Moses could still say to Yahweh, “If I have found favour in your eyes”….(next blog) 

It was an impossible situation for Moses. The two people – Aaron and Miriam – he’d depended on and needed the most in leading the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, had both turned on him. They even felt justified in turning on him too, because in their eyes Moses hadn’t come up to their expectations and standards of proper behaviour.

Their accusations, however, sounded more like trumped up charges against Moses to justify toppling him from leadership and the two of them taking over. Which must’ve really rocked Moses back on his heels, not only because of his brother’s and sister’s blatant arrogance, but also in the shattering of their trust in him. 

And when it’s family – emotions can overheat easily and quickly. But there’s no record of that happening to Moses in Numbers 12. Instead, verse 3 speaks only of him being “the most humble person on the earth,”  and in verse 4 of Yahweh immediately (and angrily, verse 9) getting involved and coming to Moses’ defence. 

So this becomes personal to Yahweh, and in no uncertain terms he explains to Aaron and Miriam why it’s personal: it’s because “my servant Moses is faithful in all my house” (7). He’s done everything I’ve asked him to do, and “with him I speak face to face,” so he knows me just like I know him. I trust him and he trusts me, so why on earth did you dare to speak against him (8)? 

Yahweh was so angry at how they were treating Moses – who hadn’t fired a shot in return too – that on Miriam, who seems to have been the main instigator, Yahweh inflicted the dreaded leprosy (10). But that’s what broke through Aaron’s arrogance, because he turned to Moses and begged him in verse 11, “Please don’t hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed.” How fortunate it was, then, that Moses was a humble man, because his first reaction was to “cry out to the Lord, ‘O God, please heal her’” (13), not tell Aaron that Miriam deserved leprosy for her stinking attitude, so don’t come crying to him for help.

And again it was Moses’ humble spirit that Yahweh honoured, because after isolating Miriam from the camp for seven days he allowed her back (14-15), healed and repentant. Thanks to Moses’ humility, then, the blatant arrogance of his brother and sister had been turned into humility too. Such was the importance of humility to Yahweh, so in other situations, “Why did God allow Moses to challenge him?”….(next blog)

Numbers 12:3 says that “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” But why the sudden mention of it at this point?

There’s a clue in the context, which is about “Miriam and Aaron talking against Moses because of his Cushite wife” (1). To them it was sufficient reason for criticizing Moses, and even questioning his right to be their sole leader (2). But why now? They’d never had a problem with Moses marrying Zipporah his Midianite wife, but now all of a sudden their younger brother marrying a foreigner was an issue for them.

And how brutal it must’ve been for Moses too, having his older brother and sister turn against him like this, and especially his sister Miriam who’d saved his life as a baby, and faithfully stuck by him as the three of them led Israel out of Egypt (Micah 6:4). Miriam was a “prophetess” too, and a highly inspirational leader (Exodus 15:20-21). But now this sudden change in her, so what happened?

Had her lofty position in Israel led to a spark of arrogance in her mind? – hinted at in the previous chapter too, when Moses “brought together seventy elders” (11:24), and Yahweh then “took of the Spirit he’d put on Moses and put it on the elders” so that they “prophesied” (25). But hadn’t Yahweh selected only Miriam as the one doing the prophesying? So what did Moses think he was doing wanting seventy others prophesying too?

And what right did Moses have to make such a decision in the first place when, in Miriam’s mind, he’d made such a bad decision marrying a foreigner (12:1)? Miriam was building a case against Moses, even suggesting in verse 2 that he wasn’t the only one Yahweh had chosen to speak through, because “Hadn’t he also spoken through us (Aaron and Miriam) too?” Was this a coup driven by arrogance in the making, then? 

It looks like it, because Yahweh jumps in “at once” (4), has all three – Moses, Aaron and Miriam – “come out to the Tent of Meeting,” where he has a few choice words to say to Aaron and Miriam (5-6). And it’s in this context that Moses being “the humblest man on the planet” is mentioned, because even when betrayed and belittled by his own flesh and blood he did not retaliate. And what that did was bring Yahweh himself to Moses’ defence, and he then began the process of “Turning arrogance into humility”….(next blog)

Moses understood that it’s also part of Yahweh’s strength and glory to punish – because of his reason for punishing, a clue to which Yahweh himself gave in Numbers 14:33.

In response to the outright rebellion and contempt by the adult Israelites (11), Yahweh told them in verse 33, that “Your children will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert.” His reason for punishing, therefore, was clear, that the adult Israelites’ unfaithfulness to him would have a devastating effect on their children. 

Which sounds cruel, but in context it was a merciful punishment, because the Israelites had treated Yahweh so miserably he was at the point of wiping them all out (12), including their children. So life could have ended for all the adults and their children there and then. But instead, Yahweh punished them in such a way it would give them a chance to repent. He gave them another forty years, time enough for three to four more generations of children to be born, and time enough for the adults to see their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids miss out on forty years of living in the “exceedingly good” land of Canaan (7), and be reduced instead to wandering the desert looking after sheep (33).

But didn’t it also mean that their children would get the chance to learn why they and the rest of Israel had been punished this way? There was such a simple answer too, in verse 24, when Yahweh said: “because Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land (of Canaan), and his descendants will inherit it.” So for Caleb’s faithfulness to God, both he and three or four generations in his family would enjoy the Promised Land together.

Hopefully, then, forty years of suffering in the desert would get that point across to the generations of children alive during that time, so that Yahweh could “bring them in to enjoy the land that (you adults) rejected” (31). Such is the loving power of punishment, just like the loving power of sending a child with a rotten attitude to his room, and he stays there for however long it takes too (three or four hours if necessary, like three or four generations for the Israelites), to pierce through his attitude and humble him a bit, especially when he too realizes what he’s missing out on. 

No wonder, then, that Moses saw Yahweh’s punishing as a strength, because the way Yahweh did it could turn an attitude dial from presumptuous to humble, like Moses himself who became “The humblest man on the planet”….(next blog)  

In Numbers 14:18, “Yahweh punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” And Moses accepts this as “the Lord’s strength being displayed” too (17).  

But how on earth can punishing children – who aren’t responsible for their parents’ sins – show Yahweh’s “strength”? There’s a clue in Exodus 20:5, where “punishing to the third and forth generation” is first mentioned in Scripture, in the second commandment about “not making idols of anything in heaven or earth and bowing down to them (4-5) – FOR,” and here’s Yahweh’s reason for it – “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,” so “I punish those who hate me, but show love to thousands who love me and keep my commandments.”

This is amazing, that Yahweh, the supreme commander of the universe, is deeply affected emotionally by how this tiny group of ex-slave Israelites feel and act toward him. Do they love him or hate him? And why was that important to him? Because his reason for choosing these people out of all the nations on earth was to “take you as my own people, and I will be your God,” Exodus 6:7. 

He knew that no other god could do for Israel what he could do for them. Only in his all powerful and loving care would they flourish. And this is what he wanted Israel to know. He was just like a young man desperately wanting to give his all to the woman he’s come to love, and desperately hoping she’ll see that in him enough to happily commit her life and love to him in return. Because if she does he will fiercely and jealously protect her and care for her, and if it came to it, die for her. 

Imagine, therefore, how he’d feel if, after proving to her that he really loved her in both his words and actions, that she turned against him, accusing him of wanting to wreck her life instead. Because that’s exactly what Israel did to Yahweh. The whole bunch of them cried out in Numbers 14:2-3, “If only we’d died in Egypt, or in this desert. Why did the Lord bring us here to let us die, and our wives and children be taken as plunder? Better for us that we go back to Egypt instead, right?”

Which was like a stab to the heart for Yahweh (11). But how to get that across to these foolish, dumb Israelites? By “The loving power of punishment”….(next blog)

When Yahweh threatened to kill off the Israelites in Numbers 14:12 and replace them with a nation he’d build through Moses instead, Moses’ response in verse 17 wasn’t to grab the opportunity to become a great leader and make a name for himself, it was, “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed.” 

And “strength displayed” in two ways. First of all in Yahweh being “slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion” (18), because It was that amazing strength in Yahweh that had got the Israelites to the border of the land he’d promised to Abraham, despite their constant moaning and resistance to him. Without that strength of Yahweh being able to forgive, the nation of Israel would have ceased to exist.

But there was a second strength Moses knew Yahweh had – and how crucial he display it too. And that was making sure “the guilty aren’t left unpunished” in verse 18. And Yahweh’s response in verse 20 was, “I have forgiven them (displaying his first strength). Nevertheless (21), as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of those (22) who saw my glory and the miracles I performed in Egypt and in the desert, who disobeyed me and tested me ten times – not one of them (23) will ever see the land I promised to their forefathers . No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.” 

And Moses knew the Israelites needed to see that strength in Yahweh too, that he would not back down from punishing the guilty, because the rebels would simply continue rebelling to the detriment of the whole nation and to God’s purpose. And Yahweh came through on that one all right: “I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community which has banded against me. They will meet their end in the desert; here they will die” (35).

Did Yahweh then back down when the Israelites admitted “We’ve sinned” and they tried to reverse his punishment by “going up to the place he’d promised” (40)? No, because as Moses warned them in verse 43, “you’ve turned away from the Lord so he won’t be with you and you will fall by the sword.” But typical of them by now, they didn’t listen to that either, so they got exactly what their presumption deserved (44-45).

It also included their children “suffering for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies here in the desert” (33). But why punish the children who weren’t guilty “To the third and fourth generation” too?….(next blog)    

The glory of Yahweh really emerges in his ready acceptance of a Mediator. Twice he was on the point of wiping out the Israelites, but each time he honoured Moses’ appeal on their behalf. 

But what would make him do that? Why would the mighty Yahweh El, supreme commander of the universe, allow a decision of his to be questioned, and even challenged, by a mere earthling?  

There’s a clue in Yahweh’s view of Moses as a kindred spirit. Moses thought like him. When the Israelites “committed a great sin making gods of gold” in Exodus 32:31, for instance, Moses’ first thought was to beg Yahweh to “forgive their sin” – and if no forgiveness, then blot him from existence, rather than the Israelites (32). Which was totally in tune with Yahweh’s thinking in Exodus 34:6-7 when describing himself to Moses as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” 

It was this meeting of their minds that pleased Yahweh immensely, so that when Moses appealed on behalf of the Israelites, Yahweh willingly listened to him (33:17). It happened again in Numbers 14 too. Yahweh is about to destroy the Israelites a second time for “treating me with contempt” and he wants to create a new nation in Moses himself (11-12), a tempting proposition for Moses, having put up with the Israelites’ constant moaning for so many years too. 

But instead, Moses jumps in again as Mediator. He makes his appeal on two fronts. First of all, how is it going to reflect on Yahweh himself if word gets out that “The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert” (16)? So much for Yahweh being the supreme commander of the universe. But more to the point, verse 19, “In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you’ve pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” 

And coming from Moses this was powerful stuff, because he’d stuck with the Israelites and loved them through thick and thin as well, so again it was mind meeting mind, a kindred spirit appealing to a kindred spirit, and Yahweh’s response was immediate: “I have forgiven them as you asked” (20). But he also based it on Moses’ understanding that “The guilty aren’t left unpunished”….(next blog) 

What more could Yahweh have done to show how “jealous” he was for the Israelites? Like a devoted husband he’d poured his love into providing for and protecting them, so they not only survived every obstacle and opposition on their journey from Egypt, they were now poised at the very gates to the Promised Land, ready to enter it as soon as the report came back from those who’d been sent to check it out, Numbers 13:17-25.

And to begin with, in verse 27, their report confirmed exactly what Yahweh had promised back in Exodus 3:8, that “the land really does flow with milk and honey,” with just one bunch of grapes requiring two men to carry it as evidence (Numbers 13:23). Caleb, therefore, was all for “going up and taking possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (30).

“But” in verses 31-33 “the men who’d gone up with him spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they’d explored,” that it would be suicidal attacking it because the people there were huge and their cities heavily fortified. Which brought on another heavy bout of moaning among the Israelites against Yahweh for bringing them to a land that would get them all killed. So they were all for choosing another leader to take them back to Egypt, Numbers 14:2-4.

Caleb, now joined by Joshua, fires right back with a ‘How dare you suggest such a thing?’ when it’s obvious that “the Lord wants us to have this land, so there’s nothing we need fear from these people. We’ll swallow them up, because they don’t have any protection, but the Lord is with us. So do not lead an insurrection against him” (5-9). But rather than listen to Joshua and Caleb, the people considered stoning them (10). 

Well, that had Yahweh telling Moses in verse 11, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?” It was the final straw. Everything he’d done for them, and wanted to do for them, and it all meant nothing. So Yahweh made the consequences of their contempt crystal clear: “I’m going to strike the lot of them down with a plague and it will destroy them, so I can make you, Moses, into a nation that will be so much greater and stronger” (12).

So Israel’s contempt for Yahweh had banged the last nail in their coffin. Did Israel’s story end there, then? Not so, because in jumps “Moses the Mediator”….(next blog) 

In Exodus 34:9, Moses admits to the Israelites being “a stiff-necked people” deserving of punishment, but he pleads to Yahweh to “forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.” 

Yahweh’s response in verse 10 is amazingly forgiving, because he says to Moses, “I’m going to make a covenant with you, that in full sight of your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. And the people you’ll be living among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you.” Not a mention of punishment for sins past; instead, Yahweh is giving the Israelites a totally fresh start and a great future to look forward to. 

And all would go well if the Israelites then “stuck to Yahweh’s instructions” (11), “rejected all other gods” (14), and “steered clear of making any sort of treaty with the locals in the land” (15). Not because this was some sort of condition to be met for the covenant to work, but because of what Yahweh said in verse 14, that his “name is Jealous and he’s a jealous God.” Which opened up a whole new view of Yahweh as an emotionally reactive being, because it could mean serious consequences if the Israelites’ loyalty and affections strayed elsewhere.

But look at it from Yahweh’s point of view. His loyalty to Israel and his affection for the Israelites were absolute. He loved them, which he’d clearly shown by his amazing miracles to rescue them, by putting up with their grumbling, and even relenting on wanting to wipe them out for their blatant rebellion. He was “jealous” all right, like a jealous lover who gives his all to make the relationship flourish and prove he’s totally committed. How shattering it becomes, then, when the one he loves seeks affection elsewhere and dismisses him entirely.

In Yahweh’s relationship with Israel, therefore, he’s reacting exactly like a jealous lover, so expect him to be shattered too when his love and commitment, his trust and loyalty, and his wanting the relationship to flourish, are all contemptuously dismissed. When that happens in marriage, and husband or wife seek affection elsewhere it carries a terrible risk of arousing deep rage – so deep that it drives out all thoughts of forgiveness, and instead in pours the desire to punish.   

And that was the risk Israel took with Yahweh, because they just didn’t get it that he loved them that much. It didn’t take long for them, however, to discover “The consequences of contempt”….(next blog)

“The Lord,” having shown Moses his glory in terms of his “mercy and compassion” in Exodus 33:19, doesn’t stop there, because in Exodus 34:1, he has Moses “chisel out two more stone tablets like the first ones he broke,” and then has Moses climb Mount Sinai with the tablets to “present himself to me on top of the mountain” (2).

And it’s there that he again “passed in front of Moses” (6), but this time “proclaiming his name” to Moses in more detailed form than the first time, saying, “The Lord, the Lord” and specifically saying it twice (6) – but with a difference between the two, because the first “Lord” in Hebrew is just Yahweh, but the second “Lord” is Yahweh El – the “El” bit meaning the one true God of the universe, the mighty God supreme in his authority and power over all gods. But why the need to know both Yahweh and Yahweh El?

There’s a clue in what “the Lord” says next in verses 6 and 7, describing himself as “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” This is the Yahweh Moses had come to know too, since their very first meeting together back in Exodus 3, from Yahweh first saying “the cry of the Israelites has reached me” (9), to rescuing them from the Egyptians and “taking you as my own people, and I will be your God” (6:6-7). Because this, Moses would learn, was the nature of Yahweh: in a word it was “love.”

But Exodus 34:7 then adds the word “Yet,” so there’s a change of tune coming up, revealing another side to Yahweh’s nature, because “he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” And Moses would come to know this Yahweh too, Yahweh El, the Yahweh who still loves but as the supreme God of the universe also administers justice. And Moses got a whiff of this side of God’s nature as well in Exodus 32, when he pleads with Yahweh to forgive the Israelites for making their own gods of gold (31-32), appealing, therefore, to the merciful nature of Yahweh he’d come to know. The response he got back from Yahweh was, “Go on, then, lead the people to the place I spoke of. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin” (34). Which he did in verse 35 with a plague.  

So Yahweh forgives but he also punishes. What, then, decides his “Forgiveness or punishment”?….(next blog)