And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said to them, Hear now, ye rebels shall we bring forth to you water out of this rock?
Israel has no water at Kadesh, and God tells Moses to take the rod, gather the people, and speak to the rock. Moses gathers them. But then he turns on the crowd instead of the rock. He calls them rebels and asks a question God never gave him to ask.
The instructions were exact. Moses did part of them and then stopped. One writer marks the point where his obedience breaks off.
Moses did take the rod from before the LORD, as He commanded him. But when he and Aaron gathered the people, he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels!" Instead of speaking to the rock he speaks to them. He was not told to do so.
The question he asks puts himself and Aaron where God should have been. A writer notices how much weight rests on a single pronoun.
He was so jealous for his authority that for the moment he forgot his own place as a servant. "Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" Where was the honour due to God in that word "WE"? No one was as meek as Moses. But here he failed, and he did not honour God as holy in the eyes of the people. His own place and authority filled his mind: there was no room at that moment for the thought of grace.
Moses had been angry before without sinning. This time it had turned into something else. One writer sets the two occasions side by side: the broken stone tablets after Israel's idol worship, and this one.
He acted in defence of the holiness of God when he broke the tablets in pieces at the foot of the mountain. His anger burned hot, yet his behaviour fitted the command, "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger." But when Moses raised his rod to strike the rock and said, "You rebels," his anger had sunk far lower. He was no longer defending the character of God, as he had done before. He now laid himself open to God's righteous anger, because he acted in direct opposition to His word and will.
The pressure came from the people, and Scripture says so plainly, but it does not excuse him. Another writer describes what filled his thinking at that moment.
The rebellion of the people and the contempt of his authority have got a firmer hold on his mind than the intelligence of the grace of God.
Moses spoke for God, so his tone and his actions told Israel something about God. That is where the failure was most serious.
His sin was simply this: he gave a false picture of God to Israel. He misrepresented God to a rebellious people... God was acting towards Israel in the boundless grace of His own heart. It was grace, and priestly grace too, because only priestly grace can bring a complaining people through the wilderness. But Moses, instead of taking the rod, takes his own rod, the rod of judgment and government... he stood before the people the very contrast to that character in which God was dealing with them.
Years earlier God told Moses to strike the rock, and he obeyed. Here he strikes it a second time, and that spoils the picture, because the rock stands for Christ.
He did not serve in God's way. So his service was not acceptable. It displeased the Lord so much that he was not allowed to go into the land because of it... The failure was very great. He did not obey the Lord's plain command, and he also spoiled the picture. That picture was surely meant to teach us that the rock, once struck, need never be struck again. It would give out refreshing streams at the cry of faith, as we now know Christ.
The servant failed, but God's grace towards the people did not stop.
We see, then, how angry God is with those who interfere with His ways in grace and dare to try to block its flow, whether towards saints or sinners. So God let Moses strike the rock, but He did not let that sin stop the tide of His grace. That grace rose higher than the sins of His people — including the sin of His servant Moses.
One writer turns the lesson on the reader, with plain advice for the moment before you speak.
Oh, learn, I beg you, to choke your anger. Weep over your folly and sin in the presence of God. Be firm in your efforts to control the workings of your passions within. Firmly refuse to open your lips to say your words while they are red hot. Let them cool, or else like Moses you will speak rashly with your lips.
- Provoked — the people's rebellion filled his mind more than God's grace. Anger that once defended God's holiness now fought His word.
- Misrepresented — a servant sent to show God's grace showed the opposite. He stood before the people as the very contrast to how God was acting.
- "We" — one pronoun took the honour that belonged to God, and Moses forgot for a moment that he was only a servant.
- Struck twice — Moses spoiled the picture. The rock once struck never needed striking again; it gives its streams at the cry of faith.
- Yet grace won — God kept His servant out of the land, yet His grace rose higher than the sin of both.
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his staff smote the rock twice, and much water came out, and the assembly drank, and their beasts.
The people were thirsty again. God told Moses to take the rod and speak to the rock. Moses struck it twice instead, and the water still poured out. Commentators see two things here at once. Moses ruined a picture God was drawing, and grace flowed anyway.
The instruction here was deliberately different from the earlier one at Rephidim, and the difference is the whole point.
God told Moses to take the rod laid up before the Lord, which was Aaron's rod that had budded, and with it to speak to the rock, and the water would gush out. He struck the rock in disobedience. The water came out in grace, but he suffered for his act. What Moses no doubt did not understand then is plain to us now. Blessing flows to us only on the ground of the Lord's death. But He died only once. So on the first occasion when water was needed the rock was to be struck, a picture of the Lord's death on the cross. But blessing ever after would and does flow from His intercession as our High Priest on high.
The rod Moses carried was not his own, and striking with it damaged the very thing it stood for.
There can be no repetition of the death of Christ; and so Moses was wrong to strike the rock twice with his rod — wrong to strike it at all. He was commanded to take "the rod," Aaron's rod, the priestly rod, and speak to the rock. The atoning work is done. Now our great High Priest has passed into the heavens, to appear in the presence of God for us. The streams of spiritual refreshment flow to us on the ground of accomplished redemption.
The blow did not come out of nowhere. Moses had just asked the people whether he and Aaron must bring them water out of the rock. That "we" gives him away.
Moses has forgotten the rod. What is Moses? Nothing; he has no power to fetch water from the rock, and he has forgotten the present power of God, the only thing that could enable him to do it. He has forgotten God; he is thinking about himself. Here we see again the sin of our hearts, using the very grace God has given us for the purpose of self-exaltation, to say "we."
God was showing mercy at that very moment. Moses reached for his own authority instead.
He who had so long lived as the meekest of men failed in this very respect at last. God was magnifying His mercy and calling attention plainly to the truth that nothing but priestly grace could bring an erring people through. At that moment Moses gave way to natural resentment and asserted his own authority. He had sunk to their level, instead of hiding himself, as faith would have done, behind the grace of God.
The key word in the verse is "abundantly." God did not cut back His supply to match His servant's failure.
He had been told to speak to the rock; but he strikes it twice, as though divine power needed to be backed up by human energy. Yet still "the water came out." God's faithfulness is not touched by the failure of His servant... God may be using someone's ministry for the blessing of others at the very moment when He is about to discipline that same person.
The water flowed at once, so nothing looked wrong. God settled the account later.
At the water of Meribah Moses and Aaron sinned seriously. They committed a very high offence in striking the rock and challenging the congregation. But the water came out, and it came at once and abundantly, as though all were right. The whole congregation drank of it, and to all present appearances the Lord had no dispute with anyone. But afterwards the Lord let them know that their offence had not been overlooked. Because of it they would fall short of the land of Canaan and die on the wilderness side of the Jordan.
The picture Moses spoiled still shapes how believers seek fresh power today.
Moses spoiled the picture. The rock had been struck once. Christ has been struck once... What we need is not a fresh giving of the Spirit. We don't have to have Christ go and die again in order to give us the Spirit again. No! Speak to the Rock. Christ is the Rock. Speak to Him, so that the fullness of the Spirit may flow out more and be seen in His saints.
- Once struck. God told Moses to strike the rock the first time. That blow pictures Christ's death, and it can never be repeated.
- Then spoken to. This time the rod is Aaron's, the rod that budded. Supply now comes through our living High Priest, not through another blow.
- Struck twice. Moses gave way to resentment and claimed his own authority. He struck with the rod when God had said speak.
- Water still flowed. God's faithfulness did not depend on His servant's obedience. The people and their animals all drank their fill.
- Judged later. The instant blessing hid nothing. Later the Lord told Moses and Aaron they would fall short of the land.
And Jehovah said to Moses and to Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to hallow me before the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land that I have given them.
At Kadesh there is no water, and God tells Moses to take the rod and speak to the rock; Moses calls the people rebels and strikes it twice. The sentence falls on the two leaders, not the crowd: what did Moses do that cost him the land?
God had once told Moses to strike a rock, back in Exodus 17. The difference between the two scenes explains the failure here.
In Exodus God told Moses to strike the rock, and he struck it with his rod of judgment. The gift of the Spirit comes from Christ after He was struck and suffered for us. In Numbers it is the opposite. Moses was told to take the rod — that is, Aaron's rod of priestly grace, kept before the Lord. He and Aaron were to speak to the rock in front of the people, and it would give out its water. But there they failed. Moses did take Aaron's rod, as the Lord commanded him, but he struck the rock twice with his own rod. So they failed in faith to sanctify the Lord before Israel. Striking was as wrong now as it was right before.
Aaron's rod was the staff that had budded, kept before the Lord as the sign of priesthood. Moses held that rod and struck the rock anyway.
There can be no repetition of the death of Christ. So Moses was wrong to strike the rock twice with his rod — wrong to strike it at all. The atoning work is done, and now our great High Priest has passed into the heavens, to appear there in the presence of God for us. The streams of spiritual refreshment flow to us on the ground of finished redemption. They flow in connection with Christ's priestly ministry, and Aaron's budding rod is the beautiful picture of it.
God names the failure twice over: they did not believe Him, and they did not treat Him as holy before Israel. Both charges come back to the rod.
How did they fail to sanctify God? By not doing as they were commanded. The truth of priesthood taught by the rod was set aside as if it were of no use to the people... But God is most jealous of anything at all that interferes with His grace. God remembered mercy; Moses thought of their sin. God looked at the rod as a pledge of grace; Moses saw only the "token." He did not see the mercy side of the rod. No wonder he took his own rod, the symbol of the righteous government of God. He said "Hear now, you rebels" — a word the Lord had not put into his mouth.
The blow was not the only failure. Listen to the pronoun Moses used.
He was so jealous for his authority that for the moment he forgot his own place as a servant. "Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" Where was the honour due to God in his saying "WE"? No one was as meek as Moses; but here he failed and did not sanctify God in the people's eyes.
The penalty can feel out of scale with one angry moment. Its weight matches how close these men stood to God.
God most of all resents a grave misrepresentation of Himself by someone who ought to have known Him well. Moses and Aaron were very near to God. They had entered — Moses above all — into His grace. That is exactly why their total failure now became the reason for setting Moses aside as a vessel that had done its work.
The water still came. God's honour did not finally depend on His servants getting it right.
Moses and Aaron did not sanctify Him; they gave up grace to defend their injured authority. Had this been God's feeling, they would have brought no water out of the rock at all. The Lord was sanctified all the same. He kept to His own word and His own grace, despite the failure of Moses and Aaron. That failure brought immediate reproof on them, and the sharp chastening of dying outside the land where grace was leading the people.
Some say Moses was shut out only because of the office he held.
Neither Numbers 20 nor Deuteronomy 1 says anything about Moses in his official role. We have the man himself before us. God forbids him to enter the land because he spoke rashly with his lips.
Yet the door God shut was not the last word He spoke to Moses.
God, in government, kept Moses out of Canaan. God, in grace, brought Moses up to Pisgah. These two facts in the history of Moses show clearly the difference between grace and government... Grace pardons and blesses; but government takes its course.
- Rod — God named the instrument: Aaron's budded rod of priestly grace, not the rod that struck Egypt. Using the wrong rod was the whole failure in miniature.
- Repetition — the rock struck once pictures a death that is never repeated. The second blow spoiled that picture.
- Representation — to sanctify God meant showing His mercy. Moses showed judgment instead, and God guards His grace jealously.
- Responsibility — the sentence fell hard because these men stood close to God. He most resents a false picture of Himself from those who knew Him best.
- Result — government kept Moses out of Canaan; grace still carried him up Pisgah. Grace pardons and blesses, but government takes its course.