It is Numbers 20:1-13 again. Miriam was gone. Moses had just buried his sister in Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin (Numbers 20:1). She had placed his basket among the reeds of the Nile and had run to get his mother when Pharaoh’s daughter drew him out. His sister had been with him through all his trials in the wilderness. But now Miriam was gone.
ellauri164.html on line 625: Moses had been leading a rebellious, ungrateful, complaining, people through the wilderness for 40 years. His sister had just died. And now these people had gathered together against Aaron and him to complain because there was no water, again! (Numbers 20:2-5) You would think after 40 years these people would have learned to trust their all-powerful, Living God to provide for them.
ellauri164.html on line 630: God told Moses to speak to the rock, saying it would pour out water. He was supposed to speak peaceably to the rock this time (Numbers 20:6-9).
ellauri164.html on line 631: Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. (Numbers 20:8)
ellauri164.html on line 636: “And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. ” (Numbers 20:10-11)
ellauri164.html on line 641: Numbers 20:12. Despite Moses’ error, water poured from the rock. God still provided abundantly for the children of Israel even though Moses had disobeyed Him. God did not withhold His blessing from His people because of their leader’s sin. God did hold Moses accountable though (Numbers 20:12).
ellauri164.html on line 643: Moses had always done exactly as God commanded – UNTIL NOW. Moses was devastated when God pronounced his judgment (Numbers 20:12). He had obeyed God’s call to go to Egypt to free the Israelites from bondage. God had worked mighty miracles through him.
ellauri164.html on line 694: To answer this question we must examine a pattern that developed in the book of Numbers. Three times prior to the incident at the rock of Meribah the people sinned, God punished them, Moses interceded on the people’s behalf, and God pardoned the people. Please take the time to read these events in Numbers chapters 11, 14, 16 & 20. Notice the pattern in the table below.
ellauri164.html on line 705: Based on the pattern established in Numbers, what do you expect will happen at Meribah when the people rebel against Moses? We expect the pattern to repeat and for God to decree punishment, but that doesn’t happen. The pattern breaks down! Instead of decreeing punishment for the people’s sin, God simply tells Moses to give the people water by speaking to the rock. This is a significant departure from the previous pattern. When a Bible author develops a pattern and then breaks it, we should pay attention because this signals that the author wants us to notice something important. Why didn’t God punish the people at Meribah? Why did he go at Moses instead?
ellauri164.html on line 707: To understand why God didn’t pronounce judgement, let’s notice what Moses did. He leads the people to the rock, calls them rebels, and instead of speaking to the rock he hits it twice with this staff. Moses is having a temper tantrum. In the prior examples in Numbers Moses never speaks harshly or loses patience. Moses is also breaking the pattern and this is the clue to understanding his sin.
ellauri164.html on line 725: Answer: Psalms 106:32-33 states that the people angered Moses at the waters of strife, that it went ill with Moses, and that he sinned with his mouth. The incident in question occurred in Numbers 20:7-13. Miriam had just passed on. The very next verse states that the people were complaining about the lack of water. This had happened many times during their wilderness experience. And like the other times, the people railed against Moses and Aaron, whining that they would have been better off if they had stayed in Egypt. Moses and Aaron responded by falling face down. They had also done this several times. Maybe they were tired of hearing the same old complaints, or maybe this was their posture of prayer. In any event, God responded quickly, telling Moses to speak to the rock in front of all the people. Water would come gushing out -- enough water for everyone.
ellauri164.html on line 741: (Numbers 20:1-13)
ellauri164.html on line 783: 2. You'll know it when God is angry (Numbers 16:45).
ellauri164.html on line 798: Numbers 20:1-13
ellauri164.html on line 869: First, it is important to note that a pattern is established in the story of Israel and Moses. This pattern can be seen at Mt. Sinai when Aaron and Israel create the golden calf idol (Exodus 32). Israel sins, and in response to that the Lord tells Moses to step aside so that He may destroy Israel in His wrath (Exodus 32:9-10). When this occurs, Moses intercedes for Israel and pleads for God to turn away His fierce anger for His own sake (Exodus 32:11-14). This intercession works, and Israel is spared utter destruction. This pattern of sin, wrath, intercession, and relenting occurs twice more in the Book of Numbers: once in Number 14 when Israel rebels and refuses to go into the Promised Land, and again in Numbers 16 when Korah leads his rebellion against Moses and Aaron (the major difference in Numbers 16 being that Aaron is the one to intervene by offering incense for atonement to the Lord).
ellauri164.html on line 871: This pattern shows itself again in the beginning of Numbers 20 after the death of Miriam. Once more Israel rebels against Moses and Aaron, this time over a lack of water in the desert of Zin. They claim that it would have been better to have died with Korah’s rebellion rather than wander without food and water, and they express regret over leaving Egypt, a land of “grain, figs, vines, and pomegranates.” This might seem a bold claim, since in our reading Korah has just died a few chapters earlier. Careful reading, however, indicates that there’s actually been a quiet time skip; Numbers 33:38 indicates that Aaron died in “the fortieth year after the sons of Israel had come from the land of Egypt, on the first day in the fifth month.” Given that Aaron’s death is recorded in Chapter 20, just a few verses after the episode at Meribah, this would indicate that the episode at Meribah occurred in year 38 of the 40 year wandering in the wilderness (remember that Israel had spent more than a year at Sinai in addition to travel time from Egypt to Sinai and from Sinai to the Promised Land before the wandering). This means that this rebellious generation of Israelites aren’t referencing a recent event, but instead wishing they had died nearly forty years earlier with Korah! Moses and Aaron have been dealing with this wicked and hard group of people for a very long time, and they are now claiming it would have been better to have died with Korah: a fate they were only spared because of Moses and Aaron’s own intercession!
ellauri164.html on line 873: We would expect the pattern to repeat here. The people have rebelled, so the next part would be God’s wrath and threats of destruction. Instead, however, God merely grants their request for water. No mention of sin or possible annihilation, just grace in providing for Israel’s needs. The fact that this cycle we’ve come to expect changes is designed to highlight an important event; the oddity of the text “awakens us from our narrative slumber,” as one commentator puts it, and forces us to pay attention closely to what’s occurring. Why would God not threaten destruction? To answer that, we have to remember a key aspect of God’s character: He does not change. Hebrews 13:8 says He is the same yesterday and today and forever, “without variation or shifting shadow,” (James 1:17). The purpose of the threats of destruction, and Moses/Aaron’s intercession, was not to actually change God’s mind. God knew exactly what was going to happen in all these instances. God’s threats on Israel are spoken to Moses so that Moses will intercede. They are tests of Moses’ (and Aaron’s) character, just as God’s conversation with Abraham over the fates of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18) was about testing Abraham’s character rather than the doomed cities. Yet here, in Numbers 20, God does not follow the pattern. Why?
ellauri164.html on line 875: This gets us back to the question of what, exactly, Moses’ sin was. Many commentators focus on the physical actions that Moses took in verses 9-11. Some say Moses sin was striking the rock rather than speaking to it, but Moses was told to take the staff of God. Exodus 17:5-6 had Moses striking the rock to cause water to come out of the rock (in fact, it’s actually the same rock of Meribah!), so it’s possible to read an inference that the staff was to be used to strike the rock. Some commentators see Moses’ harsh words for Israel as the sin, or perhaps that he speaks to the people rather than speaking to the rock. Regardless of which of these views, they don’t account for what the text itself says: Numbers 20:12 makes it clear that the sin of Moses and Aaron was “…you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel.” Indeed, focusing on Moses’ actions of striking the rock or speaking harshly makes it seem doubly unfair to Aaron, who had neither spoken nor struck the rock.
ellauri164.html on line 877: The reading that makes more sense is to focus on the breaking of the pattern established to this point. Moses’ harsh words toward the Israelites reveal his emotions in this moment; he classifies Israel as “rebels” rather than the chosen people, and his rhetorical question seems to imply that he does not view Israel as worthy of God’s grace any longer. This is the real failure of Moses in this moment: he’s lost his faith in God to fulfill His promises to these people. Israel is a nation of rebels outside of grace, outside of God’s ability to make a great nation, outside of the promises that God has given. It seems nearly forty years of dealing with this people has finally broken Moses, and he is so overwhelmed in this moment that he has lost faith. From God’s perspective, Moses has lost faith in the Lord to overcome Israel’s faithlessness. Moses has not believed in God, and has not treated Yahweh as the Holy God who is able to overcome the weakness of His people. Indeed, this is exactly what Numbers 20:12 says was Moses’ sin! He (and Aaron!) did not believe God and did not treat Yahweh as holy in that moment. God did offer Moses the opportunity to intercede for the people (and thus broke the pattern) because He knew that Moses did not have faith in Him.
ellauri164.html on line 879: This interpretation is solidified by Moses’ words about this event in the Book of Deuteronomy. Three times in the first four chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses says that he is not able to enter the Promised Land because of Israel. At first glance, again, this might seem an unfair charge. Moses had caused his own exclusion, hadn’t he? Why is he accusing the generation after the event in Numbers 20 of being the cause of his failure? If we look at these three mentions, we see a few important facts. In the first instance, Deuteronomy 1:37, Moses is recounting the failure of Israel when they listened to the 10 spies’ negative report and how God forbade that generation from entering the Promised Land, and he then says “The Lord was angry with me also on your account, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter there.’” Moses associates his inability to enter the Promised Land with Israel’s rebellion and unfaithfulness, but he also seems to be lumping the people’s refusal to enter the land (Numbers 13-14) with his own sin in Numbers 20. This is not Moses forgetting the chronology of these two events, but rather indicating that they are closely associate with one another.
ellauri164.html on line 885: Reading the Numbers 20 passage the way that has been suggested makes sense of what Moses says in Deuteronomy. He’s not shifting the blame to Israel for his own failures, but highlighting that their constant rebellion was what caused him to lose his faith in God. Moses lack of faith led him to forget the promise and covenant of God, so he is using that illustration to demonstrate the dangers of forsaking the covenant: just like Moses, Israel will be forbidden the Promised Land if they don’t maintain faith in the covenant promises of God. That’s really one of the main points of Deuteronomy. It’s not just the covenant laws for the new generation, but Moses exhorting the new generation to never lose hope in the promise of God. Moses, knowing Israel, recognizes that there will come a day when they fail to uphold the covenant and they will be punished for it, but he also recognizes that God’s promises will stand no matter how badly Israel fails to uphold it. This, then, is the main point we should derive as well: God will always keep His promises. We, as the heirs to the promises to Abraham and Israel, should always firmly believe in the power of God to bring us, a broken people like Israel, to the shores of the Promised Land!
ellauri164.html on line 892: To begin with, we need to know that there were two instances where the children of Israel on their journey to Canaan drank water from the rock. The first was at a place known as Rephidim which would later be called Massah (temptation) and Meribah (strife). The second was at Kadesh. The water here was also called water of Meribah. “This is the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the LORD, and He was sanctified in them.” Numbers 20:13
ellauri164.html on line 904: “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth His water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the Rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.” Numbers 20:7–12 (emphasis mine).
ellauri164.html on line 927: The events leading up to and ending in his sin are recorded in Numbers 20:1-13. The children of Israel were bitterly angry about not having enough water, so “they gathered together against Moses and Aaron,” and “contended with Moses.” They cast all the blame on him. “Why have you brought up the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness,” “why have you made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place?” This was part of the murmuring that we are strictly charged not to imitate (1Cor. 10:10). Israel blamed Moses and Aaron for all their problems and bitterly complained and grumbled about it. They were so bitter and angry they wished they were dead. In all previous acts of rebellion, Moses had always conducted himself in a holy and godly manner. He had warned Israel that their murmuring was against God and never took it personally before.
ellauri263.html on line 51: Moosexen appiukko, alias Jethro Tull, Hobabin iskä (Exodus 2:18; Numbers 10:29). Feikki midianilainen Reuel antoi läskimoosexelle 1/7 tyttäristään Zipporan kiitoxexi avunannosta kaivolla. Sen johdosta Jumala muisti äkkiä tapaamisen Abrahamin, Isaacin ja Jacobin kanssa.
ellauri263.html on line 55: Gaadilainen (Numbers 2:14), oik. Deuel (Hebrew: דְּעוּאֵל, Modern: Dəʿūʾēl, Tiberian: Dŭʿūʾēl) (Numbers 1:14; 7:42); Gaadilaisen prinssin Eliasaphin isä.
ellauri263.html on line 350: No wearing of leather shoes is observed almost universally by now thanx to Adidas, Nike, and other plastic shoes. Study of the Torah is forbidden on Tisha B'Av as it is considered an enjoyable activity, except for the study of distressing texts such as the Book of Lamentations, the Book of Job, portions of Jeremiah and chapters of the Talmud that discuss the laws of mourning and those that discuss the destruction of the Temple and boring texts such as Numbers.
ellauri322.html on line 144: Vuonna 1798 pastori Thomas Malthus julkaisi esseen väestön periaatteesta, joka kirjoitettiin suurelta osin Godwinin ja suhteellisen vaalitavan kexijän markiisi de Condorcetin ajatusten kumoamiseksi. Malthus väitti, että koska väestö kasvaa geometrisesti (eli kaksinkertaistuu jokaisessa sukupolvessa), kun taas tuotanto voi kasvaa vain lineaarisesti [mixi? perustele] sairaudet, nälänhätä, köyhyys ja pahe ovat väistämättömiä. Tämän seurauksena Malthus kritisoi Poliittista oikeudenmukaisuutta saavuttamattoman utopismin selittämisestä. Vuonna 1820 Godwin vastasi teoksella Of Population: An Enquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankinkin, joka kiisti Malthuksen väestönkasvuennusteet.
ellauri370.html on line 94: In Numbers 14:45, the Amalekites and Canaanites kill a group of Israelites that tried to enter the hill country of the Amorites without Moses's permission. In Judges 3:13, Amalek, and their Moabite and Ammonite allies, defeat Israel so that the Moabites could oppress them. Judges 10:11–13 confirms Amalek as being one of the many oppressors of Israel. In Judges 6:1–6, Amalek, and their Midianite allies, destroy Israelite farms "as far as Gaza", inducing a famine. They also help the Midianites wage wars against Israel, according to Judges 6:32–34 and Judges 7:11–13.
ellauri370.html on line 124: the Heresy of Peor (Numbers 25:1–18), or for the
ellauri408.html on line 439: How do you read “in context” the commandment of Moses to mass-murder male babies and unborns in their pregnant mothers’s wombs, keeping only the virgin girls alive, obviously as sex slaves? (Numbers 31:17-18)
ellauri411.html on line 210: Juutalaisten tärkein pyhä teksti, Toora, sisältää heprealaisen Raamatun viisi ensimmäistä kirjaa. Vaikka se sisältää joitain samoja tarinoita kuin Vanha testamentti, tarinat eivät ole samassa järjestyksessä. Siinä on Genesis-, Exodus-, Leviticus-, Numbers- ja Deuteronomy-kirjat.
xxx/ellauri114.html on line 305: One of the people groups they "eliminated" was the Rephaites (Rephaim), an ancient group of loosely related tribes of giants who are often thought to be descendants of the Nephilim, mentioned in Genesis 6. In fact, when the 12 Israelite spies first went into the promised land they reported seeing Nephilim there (Numbers 13:33). The Rephaites were a mysterious people about whom the Bible says very little, except that Israel, Edom, Moab, and Ammon were all given the task of destroying them and taking their land.
xxx/ellauri166.html on line 59: Finally, God tells Moses to get water for the Israelites from a rock by speaking to the rock (Numbers 20:8). But Moses, being vexed by the complaining of the Israelites, instead of speaking to the rock as God commanded, strikes the rock twice with the staff. Because Moses did not obey God's command to speak to the rock, implying lack of faith, God punished Moses by not letting him enter into the Promised Land (Numbers 20:12). Taisit jo mainita albumissa 64.
xxx/ellauri166.html on line 316: Shechinah is a Chaldee word meaning resting-place, not found in Scripture, but used by the later Jews to designate the visible trace of Cod's presence in the tabernacle, and afterwards in Solomon's temple. When the Lord led Israel out of Egypt, he went before them "in a pillar of a cloud." This was the symbol of his presence with his people. For references made to it during the wilderness wanderings, see Exodus 14:20 ; 40:34-38 ; Leviticus 9:23 Leviticus 9:24 ; Numbers 14:10 ; Numbers 16:19 Numbers 16:42 .
xxx/ellauri293.html on line 225: Vaikka monet varhaisista kirkkoisistä yhtyivät tähän nerokkaaseen mutta fantastisen extravaganttiin tulkintaan, se vain osoittaa, mikä pakkomielle heillä oli löytää hämäriä todisteita Kristuksesta Vanhasta testamentista. Huomaa, että tää kaikki perustuu Septuagintan lukemiseen, jota ei kirjoitettu hepreaksi, vaan kreikaksi. Ei vanhan liiton Jehova kreikaxi laskenut. Hepreaxi 318 olisi Shlvsh-mvt shmvnh-shr. Gematriassa se rebbejen mukaan viittas Eliezeriin, joka inspektoi Rebekan tisut kaivolla. Lidää numerologiaa löytyy Numbers%20in%20Scripture.htm">täältä.
xxx/ellauri312.html on line 402: Mutta mixi Maarian työtakki on sininen? Fr Johnny Rotten SM, Daytonin yliopiston katolinen korkeakoulu, Marian Library-International Marian Research Instituten johtaja, kirjoitti: " Marian tummansininen vaippa, noin vuodelta 500 jKr., on peräisin bysantista ja on keisarinnan värinen." Sinistä käytetään myös kuukautissuojamainoxissa havainnevärinä. Lisäksi Numbers osoitti, että "leviittojen tulee 'levittää liitonarkin päälle kokonaan sininen kangas" (4:6). Ja edelleen: 'Ja näkyleipäpöydän päälle he levittävät sinisen kankaan' (4:7). Israelin lippukin on sininen.
xxx/ellauri410.html on line 1194: As for God the Father, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that God is not a physical being. John 4:24 clearly states "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." Yes the bible does use anthropomorphisms to convey some of His attributes but Numbers 23:19 makes it abundantly clear that God is not a physical being:
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