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How Moses Failed GodAuthor(s): Eugene ArdenSource: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 76, No. 1 (Mar., 1957), pp. 50-52Published by: The Society of Biblical LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3262132

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HOW MOSES FAILED GODEUGENE ARDEN

HOFSTRA COLLEGE

T HE Pentateuch describes in vivid detail the Israelites' forty-yearjourney from Egypt to Canaan. The leader of the people duringmost of this period was Moses, a model theocrat. He alone staved offdisaster while a new generation was being born and matured in thewilderness, a generation which we may assume was worthier of theHomeland than the ex-slaves who had fled in terror from Egypt.

Finally, after endless bewilderment and frustration, this ragged buttoughened band of travelers arrived at the threshold of the PromisedLand. At that moment, in perhaps the most enigmatic incident of thePentateuch, the deliverer Moses and his "prophet" Aaron incurred thesudden and extreme displeasure of God, and were categorically deniedthe privilege of entering Canaan, "because ye believed me not."What had been their sin? The Book of Numbers 20 1-13 tells us thatwhen the people cried out desperately for water, God told Moses toassemble the people and in their presence to speak to a rock, which wouldthen gush forth abundantly. But instead of following these commandsprecisely, Moses first chided the people with "Hear now, ye rebels..."and then twice smote the rock with his rod, to bring forth the neededwater. For this, he and his brother were barred from the Promised Land.OT scholarship has found this an embarrassing circumstance to dealwith. First of all, it is inconsistent with the heroic proportions achievedby the Moses figure. Then, too, it contradicts the many other instanceswhen Moses was able with complete impunity to assert the force of hisindividual will and personality, hurling imprecations at his people oreven arguing with God, perhaps face to face. But here, because of anunfortunate technicality, we are expected to see Moses as a sinner whodid not follow the letter of God's command - and was therefore foundunfit to lead the Chosen People into Canaan.Now, such a reading of the incident is patently nonsense. It hastherefore been argued that some material must be lost to us. TheDartmouth Bible, for example, suggests that there may once have beensome passages describing Moses and Aaron as wavering in their loyalty,for which God chose to punish them in this way. It is theorized that outof a sense of discretion these incriminating passages were later dropped,or that by sheer accident they were simply lost. Of course if we acceptsuch a hypothesis of lost materials, then we are in effect granting that

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our comprehension of the whole affair, including the punishment, mustnecessarily be imperfect, and there is little else to say about it. Butthat leaves us with something far too inconclusive to accept as a"solution" to the problem.Still another theory is considered in The Abingdon Bible Commentary.The circumstances in Num 20 1-13 are so reminiscent of Exod 17 2-7 thatwe may be dealing with two versions of the same story, or for thatmatter with two similar episodes originally distinct but later assimilatedto one another. This, however, tends to complicate rather than solvethe problem. In the Exodus version (17 6), God actually commandsMoses to smite the rock with his rod; the action of Moses in Numberswould therefore seem quite reasonable. Indeed, this will support myview, to be stated presently, that the striking of the rock in Numberswas in itself irrelevant to the main issue. I hope to show that we areconcerned here with blasphemy, not with a procedural error.What, then, are the alternatives? We may continue to theorize thatkey passages are either lost to us or have somehow been shifted about inthe OT - though it seems all too clear that in spite of the "convenience"this is no answer at all. In certain quarters we may also be offered theNumbers version of the punishment on a literal level - an uncomfortableoffering in the light of textual contradictions. I suppose we may alsoshrug off the problem by saying that Moses and Aaron shared withnearly all the refugees from Egypt a disabling lack of moral fiber, andthey were therefore unworthy of the Promised Land. But then whathappens to our historical view of Moses as the crucial hero of the OT?And why would God seize on this rock-smiting incident as a mere pretextfor excluding Moses and Aaron?

There is still another way of looking at this Moses incident, onewhich will get us closer to a reasonable conclusion. One of the things wenotice in the OT - especially in the books of "antiquity," say fromGenesis to Judges - is God's willingness to go to any lengths to impresshis chosen ones with the magic of his powers. One remembers, forexample, God's pique at Abraham and Sarah for doubting his promisethat even in their advanced years they were yet to have a son. One thinkstoo of the elaborate stage machinery of rods turning into snakes and theNile waters turning into blood, and similar divine signs during Moses'early ministry. Or one anticipates the Gideon story in which God is putto the test of performing miracles in order to win Gideon to his plans;we remember that God then puts Gideon in command of a ridiculouslyoutnumbered "army," so that the later victory can be explained onlyas a divine miracle!I would suggest that God's purpose in the Moses-and-the-waterincident is twofold: to relieve the Israelites of their intense thirst, and

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JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

to glorify and hallow his name in the eyes of his people. This is notanother instance of God's anger against the people, as, for example, whenthey had previously called for meat: "And when the people complained,it displeased the Lord." God gave the people meat on that occasionuntil it came out of their nostrils! But this time, at the desperate cryfor water, only Moses is angry, not God. Num 20 13 reports that thechildren of Israel "strove with the Lord," but even here, where we mightexpect it, we find absolutely no evidence of God's displeasure; there isno punishment of the people this time. Only Moses shows his exas-peration, his famous temper, and his astonishing egotism: "Hear now,ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?" (Num 20 lo).Moses, in his anger, takes it on himself to assume that God is exas-perated too, that the two of them, Moses and God, are one in theirresponse. The tone in which he addresses the people is that of annoyanceand condescension; the "we" is blasphemous.Now, with this shift in emphasis, the circumstances appear in a sur-prisingly different light. It isn't a question of God splitting hairs withMoses and meting out punishment capriciously. It is, instead, this:God sees his people suffering with thirst; he decides to relieve thatthirst by the miracle of water flowing from a rock at his mere word; heinstructs his intermediary, Moses, to gather the congregation and tospeak "unto the rock before their eyes." The clear implication is thatthe people will rejoice at the sight of abundant water, and they willdoubly and trebly rejoice at the knowledge that their God is with themand is showing himself by one of his happiest miracles. It is this circum-stance which Moses, in a fit of indignation, turns into a bitter denun-ciation; he curses the people, and in smiting the magic rod against therock, destroys the hallowed moment that God had so clearly intended.Thus twice in the same book (Num 20 12and 20 24) the text tells us pre-cisely why Moses and Aaron were not permitted to enter the PromisedLand: Moses because he did not "sanctify" God in the eyes of Israel,and Aaron because he was a "rebel" against God's word. The punish-ment, seen in this light, is hardly excessive, and the story makes perfectsense without hypothesizing a body of "lost" material, or without re-course to theories which raise larger questions than those which theyattempt to answer.

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