Content:
- Provision of Food and Rest
- Manna
- Quail
- Provision of Water
- Provision of Victory
- The Israelites are a Chosen People
- Israel Defeats Amalek
- Arad Destroyed
- Defeat of Sihon and Og
- Provision of Wisdom
- "Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years." (Deu 8:4).
- "Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet." (Deu 29:5b).
1. Provision of Food and Rest
1.1 Manna
(Exo 16:1–3, Psalm 78:18–20).
(Exo 16:4–16, Psalm 78:21–25, 105:40).
Some of them, however, kept part of it until the morning, but it was then full of maggots and began to smell. Every morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and as the sun warmed it melted away. On the 6th day they collected twice as much, two omers for each person. The next day would be a day of Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. They should bake what they wanted to bake and boil what they wanted to boil, and save what was left over and preserve it for the next day which was the Sabbath. They did so, and it neither smelled nor got
maggots in it. They wouldn't find any of it on the ground on the Sabbath. They should gather it for six days, but on the 7th day, the Sabbath, there will be none. Yet some of the people went out on the 7th day to gather it, but found none. The Lord had given them the Sabbath; and therefore on the 6th day they
gave them bread for two days. Everyone would stay where they were on the 7th day. So the people rested on the 7th day. (Exo 16:17–30).
see the commentary on the 4th commandment in The Ten Commandments.
until they entered the land of Canaan and were able to provide themselves with food.
God doesn't bless disobedience. But when we mess up, God is a God of grace.
His blessings come to us without merit. When we mess up and repent, God can bless us even when we don't deserve it. This can be a humbling experience.
God loves us, even when we mess up.
God tested the Israelites if they would trust him, by only giving them bread for one day at a time (Mat 6:11), with the exception of the 6h day when they were also given bread for the Sabbath. Human nature wants to protect itself against bad days, and the Israelites showed that too. God doesn't want that in our relationships with him. He wants us to trust him (Proverbs 3:5–6). God tests our hearts
(1 Thess 2:4b).
However, there is a fine line between what we are told about trusting the Lord for our daily bread and by extra labor to prepare for bad days, see Joseph, the Son of Jacob.
We aren't to be lazy (Proverbs 6:6–8, 10–11). The Bible has nothing bad to say about the work of preparation when we do it with the right intentions, see
The Parable of the Rich Fool.
God led them all the way in the wilderness during those 40 years, to humble and test them to know what was in their hearts. He humbled them, made them hungry, and then fed them manna, which neither they nor their ancestors had known, to humble and test them so that in the end it might go well for them, and to teach them that man doesn't live only on bread but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. (Deu 8:2–3, 16, Mat 4:4, Luk 4:4). Manna is a picture on Jesus
(John 6:30–35), see Typology and Jesus the Bread of Life.
It can be God's will that we must go through suffering (1 Pet 4:19). The purpose of our sufferings is to test the genuineness of our faith (1 Pet 1:7, 4:12,
Mark 4:16–17). As a man disciplines his son, so the Lord their God disciplines them (Deu 8:5, 11:2). We should endure all hardship as discipline, see the first part of
The Book of James.
1.2 Quail
The Israelites complained that they had no meat to eat. They only had manna. Moses heard the people of each family wailing at the entrance of their tents.
The Lord became angry and Moses became worried. He asked the Lord why he
had brought upon him this problem. What had he done to displease him so that
he put the burden of all these people on him. The burden was too heavy for him. Moses asked God where he could get meat for all these people. They kept wailing over him. (Num 11:4–15).
The Lord told Moses to bring with him 70 of the elders of Israel who were known
to him as leaders and officials among the people. They should come to the
Tent of Meeting. The Lord would come down and talk to him there, and take some of the power of the Holy Spirit that was upon Moses and put it on them. They were to share the burden of the people with Moses. The people should consecrate themselves until the next day, when they would eat meat. They would eat it for a whole month, until it came out of their nostrils and they loathed it, because they had rejected the Lord who was among them, and because the people had wailed before the Lord. (Num 11:16–23).
Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He gathered 70 of their elders and had them stand around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and he took some of the power of the Holy Spirit that was upon him and put it on the 70 elders. When the Spirit rested upon them they prophesied, but didn't do so again. Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove in quails from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep (about a meter) all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in every direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one collected less than ten homers (about 2200 liters). Then they spread them all around the camp. (Num 11:24–32, Psalm 78:26–29).
But while the meat was still between the teeth and before it could be consumed,
the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved for other food. (Num 11:33–35, Psalm 78:30–31).
Sometimes God lets us feel the burden that is going on in our lives. It is a flaw in our human tendency to carry burdens we weren't created to carry. Moses couldn't carry these people, nor was he called by God to do so. God would carry these people. God can use such situations to remind us of our human tendency to take up burdens that aren't ours. God hasn't called us to live so worryingly life. Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Mat 11:28–30). God anointed these 70 elders in a visible way (they prophesied) to be able to carry the burden that he placed upon them, some of the burdens that Moses had felt to be upon him.
The real issue was the people's rejection of the provision given by the Lord.
It wasn't good enough for them. They would rather go back and be slaves in Egypt. It was their sin and the cause of the plague. They let their flesh rule (Phil 3:19).
We should be content with what we have, for God won't forsake us
(Heb 13:5), see also The Love of Money.
2. Provision of Water
Desert of Sin and traveled from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses about it (Psalm 95:8–9). The Lord told Moses to go out before the people, take with him some of the elders of Israel, and take into his hand the staff with which he struck the Nile. Moses would strike the rock, and water would come out of it for the people to drink.
See the video: Amazing drone shots of the split Rock that Moses struck!
About 38 years later, 40 years after the exodus from Egypt, the entire Israelite community arrived in the Desert of Sin. There Miriam died and was buried. Shortly thereafter, Aaron would also die (Num 20:1, 22–29, 33:37–39). There was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said that it would have been better if they had died when their brothers fell dead before the Lord. They asked Moses why he had brought them into this wilderness, so that they and their livestock would die there. There was no water to drink. Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance of the
Tent of Meeting and fell on their faces, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord told Moses to take the staff and gather the assembly together with Aaron. He should speak to that rock before their eyes and it would pour out its water. Moses was to bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock could drink. Moses took the staff and together with Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. Moses told them to listen and called them rebels.
He raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, that because they didn't trust God enough to honor him as holy in the eyes of the Israelites, they won't bring this community into the land he had given them (Num 27:12–14, Deu 32:48–52). This was the water of Meribah (Psalm 95:8), where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where he proved himself holy among them. (Num 20:1–13, Psalm 106:32–33).
The Lord showed Moses the whole Promised Land. But he wasn't allowed to go there. Moses died in the land of Moab when he was 120 years old. His eye was then undimmed, and his vigor unabated. There hadn't arisen a prophet since in Israel like him (except Jesus Christ), whom the Lord knew face to face. (Deu 34).
We shouldn't tempt the Lord as the Israelites did in Massah. (Exo 17:2, Deu 6:16,
Mat 4:7, Luk 4:12). The people had forgotten God's goodness and complained bitterly because of the lack of water.
The rock is a picture of Jesus (1 Cor 10:1–4, Psalm 62), see The Parable about the Wise and Foolish Builders. Jesus connects himself to the water that comes from the rock, where the water is a picture of the Holy Spirit (John 7:37–39). See Typology.
Striking the rock is a picture of how Jesus gave his life on the cross for us. Jesus only had to give his life once, after that we speak to the rock, that is to Jesus. That was enough of what Jesus did on the cross, see The Crucifixion of Jesus. 38 years later Moses came to the same rock. God told him that this time speak to the rock, and water would come from the rock. But Moses did a fatal mistake and strikes the rock. Moses misrepresented God to the people. Water came out by the grace of the Lord. But Moses, because of his misrepresentation of God, wouldn't be allowed to enter the Promised Land in the land of Canaan. Moses didn't consider the Lord holy in the eyes of the people.
3. Provision of Victory
3.1 The Israelites are a Chosen People
desolation warfare, such as cutting down trees that have eatable fruits.
They would not make a covenant with them or show mercy to them, or they would become a snare among them. For when these people prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they would invite the Israelites and they would eat their sacrifices. And when they choose some of their daughters as wives for their sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they would lead their sons to do the same. They would turn their sons away from following their God and instead serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against them and destroy them. They shouldn't marry them. The Israelites would break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and pillars, cut down their Asherah poles and wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. For the Israelites are a holy people to the Lord their God, who had chosen them to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the Earth. The Lord didn't love them and didn't choose them, because they were more than any other people, for they were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves them, and because he wanted to keep the oath which he swore to their fathers.
(Exo 34:11b–16, Deu 7:1–8, 9:1–3, 12:2–7, 20:1–9, 16–20, 24:5).
- The Canaanites had for hundreds of years refused to repent of their sins and hadn't surrendered to the one true God (Deu 8:19–20, 9:4–6). They have had the opportunity to repent of their sins but didn't. The pagan religious practices of that time involved all kinds of vile sexual practices and even child sacrifices. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in fire. They practiced divination, sorcery, spiritism, practiced witchcraft, cast spells, interpreted omens, and consulted the dead. (Deu 12:31, 18:9–13). Eventually the judgement came, and God then used Israel to execute the punishment.
- Abraham was promised this land, and God always keeps his promises, even though Abraham never possessed it. The promise passed to Isaac, but he never possessed it either. Jacob was also promised this land but he never possessed it. During the time in Egypt, the Israelites didn't possess it.
(2 Cor 6:14, 1 Cor 7:39), see the 7th commandment in The Ten Commandments.
deities. The higher they get, the closer to their gods. The Jews adapted this and built high places to worship God. They shouldn't worship the Lord that way. True worship under the Old Covenant should be centered in Jerusalem, first in the Tabernacle,
but eventually in the Temple (Deu 12:13–14).
Jesus the Light of the World.
3.2 Israel Defeats Amalek
The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses told Joshua that he would choose some of their men and go out to fight the Amalekites. The next day Moses stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hands. Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had commanded, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites won, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites won. When Moses’ hands got tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. So Joshua defeated the Amalekite army with the sword. Then the Lord told Moses that he would completely wipe out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Because hands were lifted up toward the Lord's throne, the Lord would be at war with the Amalekites from generation to generation. (Exo 17:8–16).
The Amalekites attacked all the Israelites who lagged behind when they were weary and worn out, and they had no fear of God (see To Fear the Lord
in Fear of Man). The Lord wanted the Israelites to blot out the name of
Amalek from under heaven when the Israelites had got rest from all the enemies around them in the Promised Land. (Deu 25:17–19).
The Israelites didn't do that when they came to the Promised Land. The prophet Samuel told king Saul that the Lord wanted to punish the Amalekites for what they did to the Israelites when they came from Egypt. Saul should attack the Amalekites
and totally destroy all who belonged to them. He shouldn't spare any of them. He should put to death all men, women, children, and infants of the Amalekites,
all their cattle and sheep, camels, and donkeys. Saul attacked the Amalekites.
But Saul and the army spared Agag king of the Amalekites, and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fatted calves and the lambs, all that was good. That was one reason why the Lord finally removed Saul from his position as king of Israel. He was later killed by the Philistines. However, Samuel killed king Agag. (1 Sam 15:1–33). Not all the Amalekites were wiped out on this occasion. The Amalekites continued to be a threat to the Jews, to whom God had given the Abrahamic covenant, the promise of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. Much later there was an Amalekite
in Persia, the Agagite Haman, who tried to wipe out all the Jews from the Persian
empire, see The Book of Esther.
The Amalekites were descendants of Esau. Amalek was the son of Eliphaz, who was the firstborn son of Esau (Gen 36:12, 1 Chron 1:35–36). Esau was Jacob's twin brother. The Edomites, the descendants of Esau, would later be destroyed
(Oba 1:17–21), see The book of Obadiah. No Edomites exist today.
3.3 Arad Destroyed
When the Canaanite king of Arad heard that Israel was coming, he attacked them and took some of them captive. Then Israel made a vow to the Lord that if he delivered these people into their hands, they would totally destroy their cities. The Lord listened to Israel’s plea and delivered the Canaanites to them. They completely destroyed them and their towns; so the place was named Hormah. (Num 21:1–3).
3.4 Defeat of Sihon and Og
God had given Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land to the Israelites. God told them to take possession of it and engage Sihon in battle. On that day, God began to put the terror of the Israelites and the fear of them on all nations. They heard reports of them and trembled and were in anguish because of them. Moses then sent messengers to ask Sihon to let them pass through his land. They said they wouldn't turn to any field or vineyard or drink water from any well. Instead, the Israelites wanted to buy food to eat and water to drink for their price in silver. They would travel along the main road, the King’s Highway, until they had passed their territory. But Sihon refused to let the Israelites pass through his territory. For the Lord had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate to give him into their hands (Gen 15:16). Sihon mustered all his army and marched out into the wilderness against Israel. When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel. But Israel struck him down with his sons and all his army, and took all his cities and completely destroyed them, men, women, and children. They left no survivors. But the livestock and the plunder of the cities which they had conquered they carried away for themselves. The Israelites took over their land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified. According to the Lord's command, they didn't encroach on any of the land of the Ammonites, neither the land along the course of the Jabbok nor that around the cities on the hills. Israel took all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its surrounding settlements. Heshbon was the city of Sihon, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon. Israel settled in the land of the Amorites. After Moses had sent spies to Jazer, the Israelites captured its surrounding settlements and drove the Amorites from there.
(Num 21:21–32, Deu 2:24–37, 29:7, Judges 11:19–21,
Psalm 135:10–12, 136:16–22).
That Moses sent messengers to Sihon shows that his land didn't need to be destroyed if he had accepted what the messengers asked, at least not at that time. Even though God had hardened Sihon's heart (Gen 15:16), it doesn't mean that God caused him to react this way. By God's grace and mercy, Sihon had a choice, an opportunity to make the right decision, even though God knew how he would react, that he would refuse it, see The Predestination Theory.
Then they turned and went up the road toward Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan
with his whole army marched out to meet them in battle at Edrei. The Lord told Moses that he shouldn't be afraid of him, for he had delivered him into his hands, together with all his army and his land. They would do to him what they did to
Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon. So the Lord also gave the king Og of Bashan into their hands and all his army. So they struck him down, together with his sons and all his army, without leaving any survivors. At that time they captured all his cities. There wasn't one of the 60 cities that they didn't take from them, all of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a large number of villages without walls. They completely destroyed them, as they had done with
Sihon king of Heshbon, and destroyed every city, men, women, and children. But all the livestock and the plunder from their cities they took away for themselves. They took from these two kings of the Amorites the territory east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge as far as Mount Hermon. (Og was the last of the Rephaites).
(Num 21:33–35, Deu 3:1–11, 29:7, Psalm 135:10–12, 136:16–22).
4. Provision of Wisdom
Jethro, the priest of Midian and Moses' father-in-law, heard about all that God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Moses had sent his wife Zipporah and his two sons to Jethro. One son's name was Gershom, and the other's name was Eliezer. Jethro came to Moses in the wilderness, where he was camped near the mountain of God. He came with Moses’ sons and wife. Moses told him about all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for the sake of Israel, all the hardships they had met on the way and how the Lord had saved them. Jethro was delighted to hear of all the good things the Lord had done for Israel by rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians.
Jethro said that he now understood that the Lord is greater than all other gods, because he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly. Then Jethro brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God. (Exo 18:1–12).
That Jethro was the priest of Midian means that there were worshipers of the true God who weren't properly part of Israel. Moses took the time to tell Jethro about all that God had done for them. How he had provided for them. He gave a testimony.
In our time we find the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ (Col 2:2–3).
The next day Moses sat down to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning to evening. When Jethro saw all that Moses did for the people, he questioned this and said that this work was too heavy for him. He advised him to be the people’s representative before God and to bring their disputes to God. Moses should teach them God's decrees and instructions and show them how they should live and how they should behave. But he should select capable men from all the people, men who feared God, trustworthy men who hated dishonest gain, and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Let them serve as judges of the people at all times, but let them bring every difficult matter to Moses; the simple cases they could decide themselves. Moses listened to him and did everything he said. He chose capable men from all over Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves. See this explained at time 16:44–32:17 in
DAVID GUZIK SERMON ON EXODUS 18 I AM Your Leader. Then Moses sent Jethro
on his way, and he returned to his own country. (Exo 18:13–27).
Moses should teach the people about God's word so that they understood it, so that they could apply it to their areas of life. Second, he should appoint people who were honest and could do basically what Moses did, handling disputes, see The Book of Timothy. These people are eventually called the elders of Israel. According to tradition, the elders of Israel will appear to be the people of the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus. The Jews tried to keep that tradition alive and it became much more than God intended it to be, see Jesus Denouncement of the Jewish Religious Leaders.
For the next part, see Moses; Part 10: The Mosaic Laws.
For all parts, see Moses; Part 1: Introduction.
