The Hebrew word yârê does not occur in the story of the waters of Meribah (either time). Still, it seemed important to me to study the story I alluded to earlier. I want to compare and contrast the two stories. The first in Exodus involves Moses and the parents who left Egypt while the second in Numbers involves Moses with their children, some of whom were not yet born at the time of the first incident forty years earlier.
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| The whole community of the Israelites traveled on their journey from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim.
Exodus 17:1a (NET) |
Then the entire community of Israel entered the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh.
Numbers 20:1a (NET) |
| Miriam died and was buried there.
Numbers 20:1b (NET) |
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| Now there was no water for the people to drink. So the people contended with Moses, and they said…
Exodus 17:1b, 2a (NET) |
And there was no water for the community, and so they gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron. The people contended with Moses, saying…
Numbers 20:2, 3a (NET) |
So far the stories are quite similar, except that Moses’ sister Miriam died in the later story.
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| “Give us water to drink!” Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you test the Lord?”
Exodus 17:2b (NET) |
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| But the people were very thirsty there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said, “Why in the world did you bring us up out of Egypt – to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?”
Exodus 17:3 (NET) |
“If only we had died when our brothers died before the Lord! Why have you brought up the Lord’s community into this wilderness? So that we and our cattle should die here? Why have you brought us up from Egypt only to bring us to this dreadful place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink!”
Numbers 20:3b-5 (NET) |
In the later story Moses had learned apparently not to argue with a mob. I think it’s also worth noting that the parents in the former story murmured against Moses. They had some respect for him, maybe even some fear of the Lord, though I can see it is clearly arguable whether that fear entailed any reverence: How long must I bear with this evil congregation, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, that murmurs against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites that they murmured against me.[1]
The children, however, grew up hearing their parents’ complaints more openly. To them these complaints were simply facts. They saw no reason to murmur facts. They declared them openly: If only we had died when our brothers died before the Lord! Why have you brought up the Lord’s community into this wilderness? So that we and our cattle should die here?
Apparently, the fact that the Lord gave them water from the rock through Moses did not get as much play in the tents of the Exodus as did the complaints against Moses (or against the Lord, as He clearly took it). At least that fact did not make as indelible an impression on the children. And Egypt, a place of slavery most had never seen or known, had become a fairy land of myth by comparison: Why have you brought us up from Egypt only to bring us to this dreadful place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink!
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What will I do with this people? – a little more and they will stone me!”
Exodus 17:4 (NET) |
So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting. They then threw themselves down with their faces to the ground, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them.
Numbers 20:6 (NET) |
In the first story Moses sounded distressed, fearful even for his own life. Forty years later both Moses and Aaron have been here and done this before.
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| The Lord said to Moses, “Go over before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink.”
Exodus 17:5, 6a (NET) |
Then the Lord spoke to Moses: “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth its water, and you will bring water out of the rock for them, and so you will give the community and their beasts water to drink.”
Numbers 20:7, 8 (NET) |
In the earlier story the Lord gave Moses a bit of theater to perform. It was reminiscent of the first plague in Egypt (Exodus 7:15-18 NET):
“Go to Pharaoh in the morning [the Lord said to Moses] when he goes out to the water. Position yourself to meet him by the edge of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was turned into a snake. Tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you to say, “Release my people, that they may serve me in the desert!” But until now you have not listened. Thus says the Lord: “By this you will know that I am the Lord: I am going to strike the water of the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood. Fish in the Nile will die, the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will be unable to drink water from the Nile.”’”
He instructed Moses to take the same staff, strike the rock as he struck the Nile, and potable water rather than blood would pour forth from it.
In the later story the Lord gave Moses a different bit of theater to perform. This time he should speak to the rock rather than strike it with his staff. The children believed the harsh words they learned from their parents. Speaking to a rock is a futile enterprise ordinarily, but God would intervene here and water would pour forth from the rock as Moses spoke to it.
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| And Moses did so in plain view of the elders of Israel.
Exodus 17:6b (NET) |
So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, just as he commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the community together in front of the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring water out of this rock for you?” Then Moses raised his hand, and struck the rock twice with his staff. And water came out abundantly. So the community drank, and their beasts drank too.
Numbers 20:9-11 (NET) |
The earlier story ends much like the incident at the Nile: Moses…did so, just as the Lord had commanded.[2] The later story is more nuanced. Moses took the staff just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the people as the Lord commanded them. But instead of speaking to the rock they spoke to the people (Numbers 20:10b NET):
Listen, you rebels, must we bring water out of this rock for you?
Moses’ words conveyed an attitude toward the people’s thirst. I’m leaving aside for the moment any conjecture whether he actually believed it was the Lord’s attitude or simply went rogue. But the Lord demonstrated that it was not an attitude He wanted conveyed.
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough to show me as holy before the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.”
Numbers 20:12 (NET) |
Aaron’s inclusion here makes me suspect that he was still speaking on Moses’ behalf.[3] Both stories conclude in a similar manner.
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Exodus |
Numbers |
| He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Exodus 17:7 (NET) |
These are the waters of Meribah, because the Israelites contended with the Lord, and his holiness was maintained among them.
Numbers 20:13 (NET) |
What holiness was maintained by the Lord’s promise to remove Moses and Aaron from their places of leadership before the people entered the promised land? Jesus stated it explicitly (Matthew 6:31, 32 NET):
So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
With all of this laid out for me so plainly and beautifully, I still find myself murmuring and wondering, who can possibly please this God? But the point is well-taken, my bad attitude notwithstanding (Romans 8:8, 9a NET):
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
Only God can please God. I have been crucified with Christ, Paul wrote, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing![4]
The final occurrence of yârêʼ in Numbers is: And the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear (yârêʼ) him [King Og of Bashan], for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand. You will do to him what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.”[5]
I have no idea why Moses might have feared King Og of Bashan who marched out with all his forces to face Israel.[6] I find it hard to believe that Og’s stature[7] alarmed Moses at this late date. Aaron had died (or was executed) on Mount Hor. Moses would die (or be executed) soon. He seems to me like a man with absolute freedom, with nothing left to lose. And I don’t know why God thought Moses feared Og.
The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose φοβηθῇς here. The only occurrence of φοβηθῇς in this form in the New Testament is (Matthew 1:19, 20 NET):
Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid (φοβηθῇς) to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” [Table].
Joseph’s fear here was a moral scruple. I would certainly like to think that Moses’ fear was of the same kind. So they defeated Og, his sons, and all his people, until there were no survivors, and they possessed his land.[8]
[7] Deuteronomy 3:11 (NET) – Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remaining Rephaites. (It is noteworthy that his sarcophagus was made of iron. Does it not, indeed, still remain in Rabbath of the Ammonites? It is thirteen and a half feet long and six feet wide according to standard measure.)
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