Numbers 11

Numbers MOSES DESPONDENTNumbers 11:14 . Detail the circumstances. The leader speaks the truth in his despondency. He is pressed with the feeling of his incapacity for his work. We may take his words here as teaching us what men need in him who is to be their guide, and how impossible it is to find what they need in mere men. I. What men need in their guide. These Israelites were wandering in the wilderness; they were without natural supplies for their daily necessities; they had a long hard journey before them, an unknown road, at the terminus of which was a land where they should rest. We have precisely the same necessities as those which Moses despairingly said that they had. Like them, we wander hungry, and need a Leader who can satisfy our desires and evermore give us bread for our souls even more than for our bodies. We need One to whom we can ‘weep,’ as the Israelites did to Moses, and not weep in vain. We need One who can do for us what Moses felt that the Israelites needed, and that he could not give them, when he almost indignantly put to God the despairing question, ‘Can I carry them in my bosom as a nursing father beareth the sucking child?’ Our weakness, our ignorance, our heart-hunger, cry out for One who can ‘bear all this people alone.’ who in his single Self has resources of strength, wisdom, and sufficiency to meet not only the wants of one soul but those of the world. For He who can satisfy the poorest single soul must be able to satisfy all men. II.

The impossibility of finding this in men. Moses’ experience here is that of all leaders and great men. He is overwhelmed with the work; feels his own utter impotence; has himself to be strengthened; loathes his work; longs for release from it. See how he confesses His human dependence. His incapacity to do and be what is needed. His impatience with the people His longing to be rid of it all. That is a true picture of the experience of the best of men-a true picture of the limitations of the noblest leaders. But it is not only the leaders who confess their inadequacy, but the followers feel it, for even the most enthusiastic of them come sooner or later to find that their Oracle had not learned all wisdom, nor was fit to be taken as sole guide, much less as sole defence or satisfaction. He who looks to find all that he needs in men must take many men to find it, and no multiplicity of men will bring him what he seeks. The Milky Way is no substitute for the sun. Our hearts cry out for One great light, for One spacious home. Endless strings of pearls do not reach the preciousness of One pearl of price. III. The failures of human leaders prophesy the true Leader. Moses was prophetic of Christ by his failures as by his successes. He could not do what the people clamoured to have done, and what he in the mood of despair in which the text shows him, sadly owned that he could not. In that very confession he becomes an unconscious prophet.

Numbers 11:10-14 . Every man in the door of his tent — To denote they were not ashamed of their sin. Have I not found favour — Why didst thou not hear my prayer when I desired thou wouldst excuse me, and commit the care of this unruly people to some other person? Have I begotten them? — Are they my children, that I should be obliged to provide food and all things for their necessity and desire? To bear — The burden of providing for and satisfying them. Alone — Others were only assistant to him in smaller matters; but the harder and greater affairs, such as this unquestionably was, were brought to Moses and determined by him alone.

Numbers 11:15 . If thou deal thus with me, kill me — He begs that God would be pleased either to ease him of the burdensome charge, or take him out of the world, and rid him of a life so troublesome and insupportable. See my wretchedness — Hebrew, my evil, my torment, arising from the difficulty of my office, and work of ruling this people, and from the dread of their utter extirpation, and the dishonour which will thence accrue to thee and religion; as if not only I, but thou also wast a deceiver. He speaks like an affectionate father of a people who makes their sufferings his own. And, indeed, what could make a ruler of such paternal tenderness more distressed than to see the people he was appointed to govern so untoward, not only toward himself, but God? and to see them, by their perverseness, drawing down upon themselves such dire calamities, and the enemies of God rejoicing in their ruin?