Monday 14th August
Read Numbers 11:1-3
“Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. 3 So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the Lord had burned among them.” (NIVUK)
Three days. The people only managed to follow God joyfully and obediently in the wilderness for three days. Admittedly that may be longer than many of us last before we start grumbling but the speed with which they turn inward to their own concerns and away from trusting God is confronting. They began with the knowledge that Yahweh would be ‘good’ to them (Numbers 10:29, 32) but within three days were complaining of the ‘evil’ they were enduring (v1). The close narrative relationship between God’s promise of goodness and the people’s evil complaining is meant to draw us back to the Garden.
This first episode establishes for us the pattern that we will see repeated throughout the wilderness wandering. It is short and rather general and stands in for all the events that will follow. The people will grumble, Yahweh will judge, the people will cry out for Moses to intercede and Yahweh will relent. Given the constancy of the people’s grumbling the need for an intercessor was visible and acute!
The writer to the Hebrews, struggled with a congregation that also grumbled and looked back longingly to the old ways. They thought it simpler to call upon a Moses to intercede, to make a sacrifice, to appease God so that they could continue to do things their own way. He writes extensively about this generation in the wilderness and their fate as a warning of just how inadequate that system was (Hebrews 2-4). He holds forth the circuit breaker in this pattern of grumbling and disobedience and intercession – it is Jesus. The need for an intercessor to step in and deal with our constant grumbling, and the need to constantly replace them because they are sinful and die is resolved by Jesus. He stepped into the fire and judgement in our place…
“Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives for ever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:23-25) (NIVUK)
