Today started with the laws for purification. The Lord told Moses to have the people of Israel bring to him a red heifer without defect or blemish. It was given to Eleazar the priest, and was taken outside the camp and was slaughtered before him. The priest took some of its blood and sprinkled some it it toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.
The heifer was then burned in his sight. The skin, flesh, blood, and dung were burned. The priest would wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he would go into camp.
A man who was clean would gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. The ashes were kept for the water for impurity for the people as a sin offering.
The ashes of the red heifer were the primary focus of this act, for they were used in the ritual of the water of cleansing.
This process was similar in contexts to sacrificial worship, but this was not a sacrificial animal. It was a cow, not an ox; it was to be slaughtered, not sacrificed; and it was to be killed outside the camp, not at the holy alter.
The ashes from the red heifer would be mixed as needed with water to provide means of cleansing after coming in contact with a dead body. There were many instances where a person would come into contact with a dead body; not necessarily on purpose, but could be in close proximity to someone who had died.
Whoever touched a dead body would be unclean for seven days. On the third day, they would be cleansed properly (all kinds of rules), and on the seventh they would be clean. If someone who was unclean did not clean themselves, they would be cut off from Israel.
Then Miriam died and was buried in Kadesh.
At this point there was once again no water for the people, so they assembled against Moses…again! Moses and Aaron went to the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord told Moses to take his staff (just like he did 40 years earlier at the Nile, and the rock at Horeb), and in front of the congregation, speak to the rock to bring water from it. Now, 40 years later, at the place of Israel’s worst acts of rebellion, the scene was recurring.
Moses was told to speak to the rock and it would pour water out, but at his accumulated anger with the people, he struck the rock twice with the staff and disobeyed the Lord’s instruction to just speak to it. The water did come out of the rock and the people and animals drank it, but there was a consequence for Moses. That land was named Meribah.
Moses’ rash action brought a stern rebuke from the Lord. The nature of Moses’ offense was not clearly stated, but these factors appeared to be involved: Moses’ action was a lack of trust in God as though he believed that a word alone would not suffice; and God’s holiness was offended by Moses’ rash action, for he had not shown proper deference to God’s presence.
The end result of Moses’ action is sure: neither Aaron or Moses would enter the land of promise.
Seriously!? After all this time and all Moses did to obey the Lord and follow his directions, and he wouldn’t make it to the promise land? He screwed up one time, and that’s it. Poof, no promise land!? Wow!
Aaron was about to die because he would not enter the promise land for his rebellion against the Lord with the water of Meribah. His garments were passed onto his son Eleazar. When the congregation heard that Aaron had died, they wept for him for thirty days.
Through their traveling, Israel asked for passage through different lands, but were refused. They ended up fighting and defeating several people and gaining their lands.
Once again the people spoke out against God to Moses, and the Lord sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people, and many died. The people came to Moses and said that they had sinned, so Moses prayed for them. The Lord told Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who was bitten, when they saw it, would live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.
The people continued to travel along and from the “Book of the Wars of the Lord” they sang songs. This was presumably an ancient collection of songs of war in praise of God. They sang ‘The Song of the Well.’
“Spring up, O well!–Sing to it!–
-Numbers 21:18
the well that the princes made,
that the nobles of the people dug,
with the scepter and with their staffs.”
They continued to travel, defeating several different people and taking their lands and territories. King Sihon, king of the Amorites was defeated, as well as King Og. They sang songs about their victories. Now they marched back to their staging area, planning their attack on Canaan.
I continue to be a few days behind in reading. I agree with you in questioning the punishment Moses, not being allowed to enter the Promise Land. When he broke the tablets with the ten commandments, God made Moses write the second set and now he hit the rock verses speaking God’s word. God said that Moses was the most humble man on earth. God knows our hearts and so he knows where we “are” when we take action. So God, being a Just God, makes His decision accordingly. My take-away from both of these mishaps with Moses is that Moses accepted God’s “punishment” without complaint. His faith and trust in God didn’t change.