(Exodus 15:22-27)
So Moses/God led them into the desert for three days without water. Experts say that in a warm dry environment like that, 3 days would be the upper limit of survival without water. So these people would be very near death when they came upon this watering hole. And imagine their distress when they found out it was not drinkable. They would have thought for sure they were going to die now.
Again they show little faith, but even though they had seen miracles before, I think we need to give them some slack. I don’t think any of us would expect continual miracles time and again. But the main point here is that none of them even pray, they just complain to Moses who then calls upon the Lord and the Lord gives him an action to obey, and God solves the problem through his servant’s prayer and obedience.
They get a drink at Marah and continue on their journey being told that if they let God govern he will be their healer. Every step of the way, Israel struggled with letting God govern them. This is a challenge in the church of the NT as well. Anyway, they come to Elim which is a beautiful oasis with 12 springs and 70 palm trees.
12 Springs, 12 represents divine government or foundation. 70 Palm Trees, 70 represents a combination of two perfect numbers 7 and 10, and often represents the people of God. Here’s a picture of that spot today, but notice the surrounding land is basically what their whole journey would have consisted of only more mountainous as they continued. With very few of these Oases.
Ch 16:1-16
Then he goes on to give the instructions for gathering it.
The desert or wilderness is always a place of testing in the Bible. To this day the wilderness they travelled which is part of Egypt, is completely uninhabited and uninhabitable. In V2 we see that there too the people complained about Moses and Aaron.
What is God doing to these people? I think he’s getting them out of the comfort of slavery. What? Comfort of slavery? Yes, the slavery of the world and attachment to the comforts of the world and overindulgence. “We had pots filled with meat and all the bread we could eat.” They would rather die without God then experience hunger and inconvenience.
So far every time the people complain God comes through. But he says I will give them their daily bread, but not more than they need.
V7 Moses again lets them know a couple times that their complaint is not against Moses and Aaron but against the Lord. The Lord will take responsibility, and I think the idea is that God wants all the people to come directly to Him, not just go through the human leaders for intercession. When leaders are following God, they can all say what Moses says in verse 8, “What have we done? You have a problem with our decisions, our teaching? Take it up with God if we’re following His word.”
The word Manna actually means “what is it”? So for 40 years in the desert the people ate “what is it”. I think the implication may be that the people just didn’t get it, that this was a supernatural provision form God himself.
V23… Are we to take that command seriously? Not to the letter I don’t believe. We don’t have to eat leftovers every Sunday. But the Sabbath was meant to be a privilege, not an obligation. Remember Jesus said in Mk 2:27 that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It is a gift to us. A day that we are to undistractedly rest and focus on the Lord, remembering Him, worshipping him and being grateful for his provision. It is meant to be enjoyed.
Notice that there are always some who though they know the commands, need to go out and go against the Lord’s commands. Some disobey and try to collect manna on the Sabbath, they don’t find any. Another group tries to gather more than their share for the day, and everything that is left over stinks really bad and gets maggots overnight. By the way, bread does not stink and get maggots when it gets old. Perhaps this disobedience comes from pride, perhaps its greed, perhaps it’s a lack of trust. Probably all of that and more, but look at the results. It doesn’t help and it just angers God.
They then do another remembrance kind of thing by putting two quarts of manna in a jar to be put in the Ark so that for the rest of time, the people could remember what God supplied for 40 years in the wilderness (that bread didn’t rot). Notice that they ate nothing but this manna and a few quail from time to time for 40 years, pretty boring diet, but it was God’s way to keep them alive and it was better that eating worms or bugs. As far as I know we could not live on bread alone for that amount of time nutrition wise, but they did because this was not just any old bread, it was food from God that had everything they needed in it. It was supernatural food, and Jesus makes the parallel between this bread and the Word of God.
Ch 17
Again chapter 17 begins with more complaints and this time Moses believes the people are ready to stone him. Again God gives Moses instructions, affirming his leadership but also proving that God is with them.
Now I’ll grant it to them that this lifestyle was not ideal. Absolutely no luxuries, no comforts, no variety in the middle of a barren desert. (Here’s a picture of Mt Sinai where they spent a considerable amount of time). But they always had what they needed from God. The more I go through Exodus, the more I see the parallels between then and the church today. The Christian life is one that is to be based on trust, maybe not the easiest, most comfortable life, but the promise is for later. “Trust me, be my people, obey my commands, persevere in hardship, and the Promised Land that you cannot see will be more reward than you could ever achieve on your own”.
The other dynamic we see here is that whenever there’s trouble, the first reaction of the people is to complain and want to stone the leaders. Some things can be solved by good leadership, discussion, careful thought, strategy and action. But some problems can only be solved by God through prayer and obedience to His instructions. Here prayer is usually described as Moses crying out to the Lord. Literally a desperate plea to the only one who could intervene, they had nothing else they could rely on. How much different would it be if the people prayed first in humble thanksgiving, rather than complain and grumble as their first response?
So Moses strikes the rock as per God’s command and water pours forth from a rock in the desert. That’s pretty cool. But it’s also what get’s Moses in trouble later when he does the same thing in anger without God sanctioning it. That one act will cost Moses entering the Promised Land.
In the second half of chapter 17 we see the first attack since the Red Sea coming from the warriors of Amalek, and we see the famous story of Moses holding up his staff while his untrained people defeated this powerful trained army by God’s hand (Read 8-13). Again they are instructed by God to do something to remember this event and He says that from now on the Lord will be at war with the Amalekites generation after generation. They will receive his unending wrath because of this unprovoked attack.
Amalek was a grandson of Esau. If you recall, Esau was Jacob’s (later named Israel’s) twin brother. He was a strong hunter who sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup representing his attachment to the world and feeding his appetite at the expense of God’s blessing.
Though it seemed like Esau may have forgiven his brother Jacob for in essence stealing his inheritance, it’s likely that his children and grandchildren were a little bitter about the whole thing, and this is likely what provoked the grandson of Esau to attack Jacob’s people. These people were known to be fierce and to kill for pleasure. One of the greatest insults in Israelite culture was to be called a friend of Amalek.
Notice also that they didn’t leave their leader alone on the hill. Clearly Moses wasn’t able to do this all by himself, and I think this is a message that God’s chosen leaders are to be help up and supported by others they are serving. Here Aaron and Hur go and hold up Moses’ hands when he becomes too tired to keep them up himself.
I know there are some pastors, if we can use the analogy, who feel very alone and unsupported in their ministry, I’m not one of them thankfully. They have a responsibility and need to do their jobs, but they also at least to be lifted up in prayer, and congregations need to take on some of the physical responsibilities so that the pastor can focus on the spiritual responsibilities.
Ch 18
Now chapter 18 is interesting. We know that Moses at some point sent his family back to Midian to live with his father in law Jethro. Jethro was a Pagan priest and had heard about what God was doing with the Israelite people. So Jethro brings the family to visit Moses in the wilderness.
Now look what happens in verses 11 and 12. It appears that Jethro maybe gets saved. He states that the Lord is greater than all other gods. Now maybe this isn’t complete as he still says there are other gods, but the Lord is greatest. Very important to not only tell our relatives about Jesus but also to witness to them what God is doing in our lives. Jethro then offers sacrifices to the Lord.
The next part of chapter 18 where Jethro gives Moses some leadership advice, tells us two things. Listen to your elders, and maybe we can learn some things about leadership from the secular world. Some of the greatest leadership advice of all time is given in this passage. Jethro basically says, “why are you doing all the work while everyone else stands around?”
Moses says, because everybody comes to me to figure things out and solve disputes. But look at verse 15 carefully and we see that Moses says they come to me for a ruling from God, or for me to inquire of God. Again we see this theme that the people really don’t have any personal relationship with God, and are totally relying on Moses.
Jethro claims as a priest himself, that this is no good and you’re going to burn out. This job is too much for one person to handle. Remember Moses church was about 2 million people and he was the solo pastor.
Jethro says you continue to be the spiritual leader and teach the people God’s word, and intercede for them in prayer, but its time to break this church up into smaller bits. Plant some mega churches, some smaller churches, and some small groups, and appoint able, trustworthy, god fearing men who won’t be influenced by greed (we can read more details about this in 1 Timothy regarding qualifications of elders and pastors). Let them deal with the smaller day to day matters, and have them bring the bigger matters to you.
They can help you carry the load. If you do this, God will instruct you and you will be able to endure over the long run. Not only that, all the people in your church will go to their home in peace.
Moses followed Jethro’s advice and then let him go home.
Now I was curious about when this was in the 40 year journey that Moses was already getting burnt out by the pressures of dealing with the disgruntled people in his congregation. It appears that they were about half way distance wise, but it also seems that the second half of the journey took considerably longer than the first. If they kept moving fairly regularly, it is believed that this part of the journey up to now could have taken about 20 days if they moved say 10 miles per day. All we know from the book of Numbers is that they arrived here at Sinai in less than a year. So the second half of their journey took another 39 years.
They took the longest possible route to their destination, but even then if they moved at even a slower pace, the entire journey should have taken no more than a year. But it took them 40 years! We know that God led them by a pillar of fire and a cloud so the only explanation is that God led them on many, many detours and had them stay put many times. This was done is essence to test them as we read in Exodus, and as punishment for their rebelliousness as we read in Numbers.
The book of Numbers is actually a fascinating and necessary companion to Exodus. It goes into more detail especially about the time from when they got to Mount Sinai and forward. Apparently they built the tabernacle and developed many God ordained worship practices here. Then they celebrated the second Passover a year after they left Egypt. They then set out into the wilderness again and it doesn’t take long for the people to start complaining again.
In Numbers 11 we see quail mentioned a second time. We know today that quail meat is actually very toxic. The first time God provided quail meat, no one got sick. He supernaturally purified the quail meat as well as the toxic water at Marah. In Numbers 11 though, it seems God’s anger was at its limit and this time he provided even more quail.
Apparently quail meat must be consumed with a couple hours of killing the bird or it can cause severe food poisoning. It also cannot be cured or dried like many other meats. Well, these quail sat for a couple days and when the people ate it they got sick and died while the meat was still in their mouths. So in effect this was a natural consequence but God did not intervene.
Why did God do this? Just because the people were complaining? Well first of all remember the rabble or mixed multitude that came with the Israelites from Egypt? They are the ones specifically mentioned here who had a great craving for meat. The bread of the Lord was not enough and they wanted meat, fish, cucumbers, melon, leeks, onions, and garlic (I don’t blame them). So God says I’ll give you so much meat for a month that you will be sick of it, because you have rejected the Lord. Appetite over God. Returning to Egypt over going forward into the unknown with God.
One other thing worth noting from Numbers 11 is the mention of these 70 elders that Moses gathered. It says the Lord took some of the Spirit he gave to Moses and put it on these elders and they began to prophesy, to speak God’s word. But it was only temporary. However two of these elders that stayed behind at the camp continued prophesying. Joshua says to Moses that he must stop them and look at Moses’ response.
“Are you jealous for my sake? I wish the Lord would pour his Spirit out on all God’s people and they would all prophecy”. This is essentially what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians. And of course the Lord has now poured out his spirit permanently on all God’s people. Moses didn’t want to be the only one and this again is a lesson for today. Beware of the leader in the church who wants to have exclusive privilege and control. A godly leader will want to share that leadership with Spirit filled believers.
So that ends our next stage in the journey through the wilderness. Again I hope we can see ourselves in this wandering as we also await our Promised Land. The difference for us may be that that we like our wilderness maybe a little too much.
We learned today that as we journey, we need to stop complaining and cry out to God, depending on him to meet our most important needs of this journey. And we learned that this whole church thing is a team sport, that we don’t just rely on the leaders to have a relationship with God and let them hang out to dry. We are all part of the priesthood of believers and we are all responsible for having our own relationship with God.
