Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?
Moses is worn down by the people he leads. He turns on God with a question that sounds more like an accusation. The words startle us, coming from a man known for his meekness, and they raise a hard question for anyone who serves: when the load feels crushing, whose load is it?
What the Wilderness Exposes
Why does the Bible record a moment like this at all? One writer finds the answer in the place where it happened.
C. H. MackintoshWe learn this at least, that it is the wilderness that really brings out what is in the very best of us. It is there we prove what is in our hearts... The Spirit of God faithfully records everything. He gives us men as they are. Even when it is a Moses who "speaks rashly with his lips," that rash speaking is recorded for our warning and instruction.
The Root: One Small Word
The complaint has a centre of gravity, and it is not the people. It is a pronoun.
The Bible TreasuryMoses seems to reproach God for laying such a burden on him... The repose of faith cannot exist alongside a fretful spirit... His very despondent language is not the expression of trust in God. He forgot that the Lord was leading the people and going before them to find a resting place. He shows this when he says "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me." Strange words from the meek man Moses. The secret root lay in the word I, "I am not able." No doubt he was not able. But he speaks as if God had appointed him to bear the people alone. His words show that he forgot something: honoured as he was, he was only a servant. He had not fathered these people. It was not his job to nurse them or to find meat for them.
Another writer traces the same collapse to a lost sense of being loved: "when 'I,' proud flesh, did not count upon the Lord's love, but he began to make himself important, he failed."
Failure That Looks Like Humility
Moses feels the weight is beyond human shoulders. It is. But that was never the question.
C. H. MackintoshHe was not asked to bear them alone; for God was with him. They were not too heavy for God. It was He who was bearing them; Moses was only the instrument. He might as well have said that his rod was bearing the people. What was he but an instrument in God's hand, just as the rod was an instrument in his? This is where the servants of Christ fail again and again. The failure is all the more dangerous because it looks like humility... all we need to ask is, has God imposed that responsibility? If so, He will certainly be with me in sustaining it... With Him, the weight of a mountain is nothing; without Him, the weight of a feather is overwhelming.
God's Answer: Seventy Elders
God does answer the complaint, and the answer is not simply relief:
J. N. DarbyIn answer to his complaint (chap. 11:11-15), God tells him to bring seventy of the elders... Moses loses something of the importance of his place. God does not say, I will give them of My Spirit. He says, "I will take of the spirit that is upon you, and will put it upon them." That was a strong rebuke.
Another writer sees the answer shaped to fit the complaint:
The Bible TreasuryAlso God meets him on his own ground; he said he was not able, so God appoints seventy others to help him... The effect is that they prophesy and did not cease. This proves that God had given him enough wisdom. The thought of self hid it, and he did not seek power from God. "That you bear it not yourself alone" is the way God brings the root of his failure before him. Not that he had to bear it, but that he thought so.
The Rule for Every Servant
So the question is not how heavy the work is, but who put you in it.
C. H. MackintoshWhenever the Lord places a man in a position of responsibility, He will both fit him for it and maintain him in it. It is, of course, another thing altogether if a man rushes unsent into any field of work... He never sends anyone to war at his own expense... We can never run dry, if we are drawing from the fountain.
Christ, the Burden-Bearer
Moses' words point, by contrast, to Someone else.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinIt was failure on his part when he complained of his burden... May we think here of the great burden-bearer, our Lord, who never fails His people and who never complains. We can cast our burdens and cares upon Him and shall always find that He cares for us.
Summary
- Carried, not carrying. Moses spoke as if the people rested on him alone. God was the one bearing them; Moses was only the instrument.
- The word "I." The root of the breakdown was one pronoun — "I am not able." True in itself, but spoken as if he had been left to carry the people alone.
- False humility. Backing away from a God-given load can look like humility. The only question is whether God gave it to you.
- Supply follows call. Where God appoints, He fits and sustains; He never sends anyone to war at his own expense.
- The one who never complains. Where every servant sinks under the weight, Christ carries it. He never fails His people and never complains.