ellauri093.html on line 333: intercede for us to God, who chose you.
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 709: He has reached the end of his rope. He has been patient with these complaining and rebellious people, but he couldn’t take it any longer. Their constant ingratitude and rebelliousness caused Moses to lose faith in the people. This is the people that were supposed to be God’s treasured possession, a holy nation of priests who had agreed to be in a covenant relationship with God (Ex 19:5-8). What a disappointment they had turned out to be and Moses was finished interceding for them. God knew Moses was not going to intercede for the people at Meribah, therefore He doesn’t ordain punishment for them.
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 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 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.
ellauri264.html on line 581: Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 23 So he said to them, “Why the fuck do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. 24 No, my sons; the report I hear spreading among the Lord’s people is not good. 25 If one person sins against another, God may mediate for the offender; but if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for them? Oh Jesus.” His sons, however, did not listen to their father’s rebuke, for it was the Lord’s will to put them to death, willy nilly.
ellauri270.html on line 363: In the crowd, Mr. Adams turns to Old Man Warner and says that apparently the north village is considering giving up the lottery. Old Man Warner snorts and dismisses this as foolish. He says that next the young folks will want everyone to live in caves or nobody to work. He references the old saying, “lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” He reminds Mr. Adams that there has always been a lottery, and that it’s bad enough to see Mr. Summers leading the proceedings while joking with everybody. Mrs. Adams intercedes with the information that some places have already stopped the lotteries. Old Man Warner feels there’s “nothing but trouble in that.”
xxx/ellauri165.html on line 631: There’s nothing wrong praying to the saints and to Mary the mother of God. They are close to God and can intercede when he has a cow.
xxx/ellauri187.html on line 101: W. H. Auden once remarked that would-be poets had better learn a manual trade. But Rilke was cast more in the haughty Yeatsian mold that Auden, not exactly a day laborer himself, haughtily disdained. And unlike Rilke's contemporary Franz Kafka, who performed his tasks as an insurance executive with initiative and even enthusiasm, Rilke was too frail psychologically to balance his art with the demands of full-time employment. Even a desk job in the Austrian army during the First World War, when the forty-year-old literary celebrity was conscripted, proved too much for him. After three weeks of parade-ground training and living in barracks, which nearly killed him, Rilke was assigned to the propaganda section. There his literary powers deserted him, and his frustrated superiors transferred the stunned poet to the card-filing department, where he remained for six months, until his friends interceded and got him discharged. André Malraux he was not.
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