Num 20:1–13 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
Last time, the people made the golden calf, and Moses pleaded with God for them. Then the LORD proclaimed his own name before Moses: “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth” (Exod 34:6).
Later the people refused to go into Canaan, and God said their children would be “wanderers in the wilderness forty years” (Num 14:33). This lesson is one more day in the wilderness with no water. On this day Moses, who had led these people for so many years, said one sentence and struck a rock twice.
1The children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month. The people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there.
2There was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.
3The people quarreled with Moses, and spoke, saying, “We wish that we had died when our brothers died before the LORD!
4Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals?
5Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.”
6Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. The LORD’s glory appeared to them.
7The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
8“Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it pour out its water. You shall bring water to them out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink.”
9Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.
10Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you?”
11Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice, and water came out abundantly. The congregation and their livestock drank.
12The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
13These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the LORD, and he was sanctified in them.
To read the whole chapter: Numbers 20, 29 verses. Aaron also dies in this chapter (Num 20:28).
Another day without water. The chapter opens quietly: “Miriam died there, and was buried there” (v. 1). Right after comes, “There was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron” (v. 2). What the people said sounds much like what they had said in the wilderness years before: “Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt” (v. 5). The passage puts a burial and a quarrel in the same paragraph and adds no comment.
First to God. Moses and Aaron did not answer back first. They “went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces” (v. 6). The LORD’s glory appeared, and God gave his instruction: “speak to the rock before their eyes, that it pour out its water” (v. 8).
One sentence. Moses gathered the assembly and said, “Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you?” (v. 10). In that sentence there are two ‘you’s and one ‘we’. When a psalm looks back on that day, what it records is this: “he spoke rashly with his lips” (Ps 106:33).
Twice. God had said to speak to the rock. Moses “lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice” (v. 11). Years before at Horeb, God really had told him, “You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it” (Exod 17:6). This time the instruction was different, but he did it the old way — and struck it twice.
The water still came. The passage goes on: “water came out abundantly. The congregation and their livestock drank” (v. 11). God did not leave the people thirsty because Moses did it wrong. God’s provision does not depend on the people he uses doing everything perfectly.
The reason God gives. “Because you didn’t believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (v. 12). Later God says it again: “because you didn’t uphold my holiness among the children of Israel” (Deut 32:51). These two sentences are the reason the Bible gives, with nothing more explained, and we will not explain more for it. The chapter’s last line rests on God: “he was sanctified in them” (v. 13).
A lifetime of faithfulness, the cost of one thing. Moses had led this people for decades, and the words and two blows of this one day kept him out of the promised land. That does not mean one mistake wiped out a whole life: in the next lesson, God himself takes him up the mountain and lets him see the land (Deut 34:4). But the cost was real. The Bible records both.
In the wilderness the people complained again and again, and Moses pleaded for them again and again. On this day the leader himself lost his footing in front of the people.
God dealt with the leader’s wrong in front of the whole congregation. For Israel, this made clear that the one leading them was not Moses, but God: “he was sanctified in them” (v. 13).
You may be caring for, leading, or serving people who are not easy. When you are worn out, a rash word — a ‘we’ll do it for you’ — slips out very easily.
This lesson is not here to frighten you with ‘one mistake and everything is lost.’ It shows you two things: God still gives water to the thirsty, and those who lead also need to honor God as holy in front of others.
This week: Think of someone you have recently spoken to rashly. Find a moment this week to say something sincere to them that goes beyond ‘sorry’ — thank them, or listen until they have finished.
Looking back on these days in the wilderness, Paul says, “For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4).
Paul does not go into the story of Meribah here. He only says who the rock was. Readers can set that sentence beside this lesson and read them together: the one who gave the people water in the wilderness was, as Paul sees it, Christ.
Scripture: World English Bible.