NUMBERS 20
The first incidents at Kadesh, in the fortieth year of the wilderness journey, were the death and burial of Miriam. She had a great place at the coming out of Egypt, for Jehovah sent before them “Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4). She celebrated Jehovah’s triumph in a sweet refrain to the song of Moses, but, like many happy believers, she did not take up that part of the song which dwelt upon the purpose of God. It is rather sad to see her die, as it were, within sight of the land, but not getting into it. How often there is a spiritual deficiency at the beginning of our history, unnoticed at the time, which leaves its mark on us as long as we are here. Miriam had not even a distinguished mode of departure like her two brothers, who went up into mountains to die. “And the people abode at Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there” (verse I). There is a warning in it. “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you might seem to have failed of it” (Hebrews 4:1).
God’s purpose for Israel was the land, and at this time the people were nearing it. So that it is a period in the history which corresponds with the time in which we now are. The period of assembly testimony in the wilderness is nearing its close. It is in view of this that during the last hundred years God has brought His purpose more clearly into the view of His saints than at any time since the days of the apostles. There has been much precious ministry of God’s thoughts concerning His saints as “risen with Christ”, and as made to “sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. The Lord has called attention in a marked way to eternal life as something to be known and enjoyed in a sphere of blessing which answers to “the land”. It is not that, wilderness experiences and education cease. We shall see from much that follows in this book that they do not, for the character of the flesh came out after this in terrible ways. But the people had now come to a part of their history which had definitely in view their entering in.
But another Meribah (Contention) comes in at this point, occasioned by the fact that “there was no water for the assembly” (verse 2). It was a very testing time, for, in great part, what they said was true. “It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink” (verse 5). Neither the forty years behind them, during which they had “lacked nothing” (Deuteronomy 2:7), nor the prospect of the land before them, with all its wealth and fatness, sufficed to give them confidence at a time when Jehovah suffered them to be tested. But it is important to see that His object in the testing at this time was not to expose their unbelief (though it did that incidentally), but to bring out before them and for our benefit, in a most striking way the value of the priesthood which He had set up on their behalf. That priesthood spoke of grace being in supremacy, for we are all familiar with how “the throne of grace” is associated with the great High Priest in Hebrews 4:14 - 16. Priesthood, in this aspect of it, supposes infirmities in those on whose behalf it is exercised. Our creature weakness makes us shrink from suffering, and if suffering is involved in God’s way with us we are very liable to be discouraged, and to cast away our confidence. But there is One before God on our behalf at every moment when faith is tried, and when circumstances seem to be the reverse of favourable.
The very sight of “the staff” ought to have re-assured every fainting heart in Israel. How could it be supposed that Jehovah would let them die of hunger or thirst in an “evil place” if He had chosen to have a priest before Him on their behalf who was characterised, typically, by resurrection power? The very fact that there was such a priest was an extraordinary token that Jehovah’s thoughts towards them were thoughts of infinite grace, and that He was bent on carrying out His purpose notwithstanding what might come out in them. But they did not think of this at the moment of testing. Have we not often been like them?
God used the circumstances of the moment to bring out that He was going on with them according to the grace of the priesthood which He had set up, even if they were not going on with Him in a sense of it. We may say reverently that He could not do otherwise than act in keeping with the resource in grace which He had placed amongst them in the priest whose staff had budded. It was a striking illustration of what Paul says, “if we are unfaithful he abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). So “Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Take the staff” (verses 7,8). It was the first thing in His mind, and the very unbelief of the people served the purpose of bringing to light its virtue and value before Him.
[p. 265] I have no doubt the divine thought was that the people should love the priest as the one who bore their names as a memorial before Jehovah. He would have had them to appropriate Aaron as their representative. God’s called ones, the heirs of promise, are marked by the appropriation of Christ as Priest. Hence we read in Hebrews, “Having therefore a great high priest” (chapter 4:14); “We have such a one high priest” (chapter 8:1); “Having ... a great priest over the house of God” (chapter 10:21). These statements imply that He is known and possessed in the character of Priest: the link with Him is secure and firm; it is an anchor of the soul entering into that within the veil; He is definitely held in faith and affection. If we love God we shall love the Priest, for He represents all that is in God’s purpose for us, and He represents us as called according to purpose.
So that this incident, unlike some of those in a former part of the book, is not so much an uncovering of the evil heart of unbelief as it is an unveiling, typically, of the grace of which the priesthood of Christ is the blessed witness. It so transcends all human thoughts that we need hardly wonder that Moses and Aaron knew not how to rise to it. The people were contending; they were wishing they had died when their brethren died before Jehovah; they said that Moses and Aaron had brought them and their beasts into the wilderness to die! Moses and Aaron went from the congregation to the tent of meeting, and fell upon their faces. It was a right attitude to take under the circumstances, and it led to the glory of Jehovah appearing to them. But neither of them was, at the moment, transformed into correspondence with the glory that appeared. It was not a glory that would consume, as on some past occasions, but the glory of Jehovah as One who was hallowing Himself in all the grace that the priesthood [p. 266] expressed, and which had the fulfilment of His own purpose in view.
“Take the staff, and gather the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give its water; and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock, and shalt give the assembly and their beasts drink” (verse 8). Should it not have sent a mighty thrill through the hearts of the two brothers? So potent was “the staff” — so marvellous the grace of which it was the token — that it had but to be brought, and the rock spoken to, and it would give its water! Moses was to have the high honour of being the personal representative of Jehovah in a glory that had not been known in the came way before! “Thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock, and shalt give the assembly and their beasts drink”. It was most blessed instruction for Moses and Aaron, as it is for us, in the glory which shines forth in the grace of priesthood, and which will be favourable to God’s people, notwithstanding all they are in themselves, because He has called them according to His purpose.
Moses had, on several occasions, become a priestly intercessor for the people. On those occasions he was a beautiful type of Christ, and a personal exemplification of the Spirit of Christ. But on this occasion, for our instruction, he was allowed to drop down from this high typical and personal level to express something of what he was dispensationally as the representative of the law. It was most needful, both for Israel and for ourselves, that it should appear that the law could not bring about the fulfilment of divine purpose. So that in this incident it is “the staff”, and “the rock”, that are the types of Christ, and we are permitted to learn a good deal more of what was in the mind of God when the staff budded as we read in chapter 17.
[p. 267] Jehovah was hallowing Himself in a grace that rose above all that the people were. No smiting would be needed, no judicial dealing, as had been seen, in type, at the Meribah of the wilderness of Sin. It was but for one to speak who carried “the staff”, and the rock would yield all that the need required. If we pray, “Father, thy name be hallowed!” (Luke 11:2), we need to understand how it is to be hallowed. Jehovah would have been hallowed by Moses speaking to the rock. All the children of Israel would have seen how wonderful was the grace that would give abundantly what they required, without even a word of reproach. It was but to speak in presence of “the staff”, and the need of all would be satisfied! Jehovah had said so: it was simply a question of believing Him. To believe Him would be to hallow Him; it would bring into display the transcendent grace which was His glory at that time. How slow we are to take in the results in grace of Christ being before the face of God for His people! “Take the staff” was a word which should have dismissed from the minds of Moses and Aaron all thought of what the people were, and should have filled them with thoughts of the grace in which Jehovah had set up a priest on their behalf. This was the great thing, the vital matter of witness, the appropriate expression of divine glory, at that moment. Jehovah would magnify “the staff” and all that of which it was the token. To miss this was to miss all that really mattered. To be out of line with it was to be disqualified for bringing the people into the land which Jehovah had given them. All must be of grace that is really for divine glory, and grace would not be grace if it were measured by what God’s people deserve.
Let us ponder “the staff”! The people of God, when tested, often speak the language of unbelief. But are God’s thoughts towards them, and His ways with them, according to this, or are they according to the blessed [p. 268] fact that Christ is before Him as Priest on their behalf? Thank God! the latter is the case; would that we took in the greatness and reality of it! In regard of entering the land all must be of grace. See how grace shines in the epistle to the Ephesians! “The glory of his grace”; “the riches of his grace”; “ye are saved by grace”; “the surpassing riches of his grace”!
The Meribah of Numbers 20 was one of the most important places of divine instruction in the wilderness, for it brought out the principle on which alone the people could be brought into the land. We being what we are, nothing but pure grace according to purpose is of any avail. Moses, as representing the law, ready to smite, proved, at that moment, an untrue witness to the divine glory, and was thereby disqualified to bring the congregation into the land. But this did not arrest the divine testimony. Jehovah became His own witness, and in spite of the unbelief of Moses — more serious, really, at this juncture than the unbelief of the people — “much water came out” (verse 11). Jehovah hallowed Himself if Moses and Aaron did not hallow Him. It was the people as subjects of grace and divine purpose who would go into the land, and only one who definitely understood this could bring them there. That is, they would not go in on the ground of what they were by nature, or in the flesh, whether well-behaved or badly behaved, but on the ground of pure grace, and as the subjects of a sovereign work of God. The thought comes now clearly before us of an Israel that stands in relation to a divinely constituted priest, and towards whom God acts as in that relation, and not according to what they are in themselves. It is really the thought of an elect people viewed according to a purpose and calling and grace which are set forth in Christ. Christ is Priest for those who are the subjects of divine calling, so that “the staff” before the testimony, coming in ([p. 269] chapter 17) after all the terrible break down, showed that God had in His mind an Israel which by His own calling would stand in relation to Christ as Priest. It is that Israel, and not Israel according to the flesh, that learns holiness and grace, and gets the victory over enemies, and finally possesses the inheritance.
From the first institution of the priesthood it had appeared as connected with God’s sovereign purpose and election, for the names on Aaron’s shoulder-pieces were engraven “in stone, as the engravings of a seal”, and “surrounded by enclosures of gold ... as stones of memorial for the children of Israel”. And it is written of the stones of the breast-plate that “enclosed in gold shall they be in their settings” and “engraved as a seal”. There is no thought suggested in this of names being there provisionally, or of any possibility of their being blotted out; they are there “for a memorial before Jehovah continually”. The priest was the representative before Him of His elect Israel — the Israel according to purpose, and not according to the flesh.
When Aaron’s staff budded, near the end of the wilderness, after all the breakdown of Israel according to the flesh, we may be sure that God’s original thought remained in His mind, with a specially added token that the priesthood of His choice would be exercised in the power of life in resurrection. It is typically Christ as a Priest in the power of indissoluble life, not for a people according to flesh, but for a people divinely called according to God’s purpose and grace. The calling is seen as secured first in the Priest, and then the election comes into it. To see this helps to make clear the line of teaching in this book. It will be seen how important is the word, “the man whom I shall choose” (Numbers 17:5). The principle of election comes in as the source of what is living.
If we turn to the New Testament scriptures which [p. 270] speak of Christ as Priest we shall see that He holds that office in this connection. For example, in the epistle to the Romans it is after the saints have been spoken of as “called according to purpose”, and as “God’s elect”, that Christ is spoken of as being “at the right hand of God; who also intercedes for us”. It is said further, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? According as it is written, For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we have been reckoned as sheep for slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us” (see Romans 8:28 - 36). The love of Christ here spoken of is undoubtedly His love as Priest.
In Hebrews Christ is High Priest for the “holy brethren, partakers of heavenly calling”. They are “the heirs of the promise”, to whom God was willing to show more abundantly “the unchangeableness of his purpose”. And this is yet more evident when we consider that Christ became Priest “with the swearing of an oath”. Nothing could show more plainly that He is constituted Priest in connection with divine purpose and is representative of those who are “called according to purpose”. Nothing can invalidate this. The priesthood of Christ is for an elect people, who are regarded by God in the light of His own purpose. Moses was altogether out of line with this when he said, “Ye rebels”. Indeed, Jehovah’s word to Moses and Aaron was, “Ye rebelled against my commandment at the waters of Meribah” (verse 24). It might appear that what Moses said was the expression of righteous indignation, and that it was warranted by the circumstances, but it was really so contrary to the mind of God at the time that He regarded it as rebellion. God claims the right to view His people as His elect, and His saying, “Take the staff”, was the indication that He [p. 271] was so viewing them at that moment. The flesh was there in the people, and it had unquestionably been in activity, but “Who shall bring an accusation against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is he that condemns? It is Christ who has died, but rather has been also raised up; who is also at the right hand of God; who also intercedes for us” (Romans 8:33,34). God will assuredly have His own way of dealing with the flesh when it acts in His people; He will discipline and purge them; but He will do so because they are the people of His election and calling, linked up with His chosen Priest.
Jehovah saying, “Take the staff”, clearly indicated that He was regarding the people from the standpoint of what was connected with the priesthood. It would have its answer in the apostle’s enquiry, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” The severe testing of the “evil place” answers to the tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and sword of Romans 8:35. Such things do bring out what we are, but they do not separate from the love of Christ. Moses and Aaron were to speak to the rock “before their eyes”. The people were to see, and to be encouraged by, the confidence with which their spiritual leaders could count upon God’s faithfulness to His own thoughts and purposes. There was to be, typically, the assurance that refreshing streams would flow forth from Christ, the blessed witness that no evils that can befall, no creature power in the universe, can separate God’s elect from the love of Christ, or from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God’s purpose and calling make this for ever sure, and the priesthood of Christ is the pledge of it.
It we speak to the Rock it will answer. There is in Christ an abundant supply of spiritual refreshing by which the saints may be made superior to all that bests in the “evil place”. “In all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”. The rock here is a “high rock”; it is typical of Christ exalted — who “has been also raised up; who is also at the right hand of God” — and as the One whose love yields such refreshing that we more than conquer in the “evil place”. “The staff” entitles us to view ourselves, and the saints, in the light of divine purpose. As in that light we can speak to the Rock in the full certainty that we shall get what we need to make us superior to trying circumstances here. Being able to speak to the Rock indicates that we have an intelligent apprehension of what is in Christ as the One in whom God’s purpose of love stands firm. When spoken to, that Rock gives its water. The blessedness of God’s purpose is known anticipatively in the wilderness, and it becomes refreshment and satisfaction in the hearts of the saints.
Immediately following this we have the refusal of Edom “to give Israel passage through his territory”. Whenever anything that is of God gets a spiritual place in the hearts of His people some form of opposition is sure to be encountered. Edom was a kindred people to Israel, and they represent those whom it is right for us to recognise as brethren, but who are marked by preference for what is natural or fleshly, and by despising the true birthright of the saints. They are content to have certain blessing from God, a territory which is a mark of His notice and favour, but which falls very short of what is in His purpose for His elect people. Such is the position of many believers in the reformed churches and in human systems where there is some light and blessing from God, but no practical taking up of the spiritual and heavenly ground to which He has called His people. We are not called upon to attack such persons (see Deuteronomy 2:4,5). But we must not expect them to facilitate our movements towards the land, Their practices and teachings and literature will not help at all in that direction. They will rather obstruct [p. 273] true spiritual progress as much as possible. Their opposition will test faith and patience, for we shall have to keep clear of them, and this will involve the traversing of a wearisome and trying way, as we shall see in the next chapter. But let us remember how much we should have lost of spiritual education if Israel had gone straight into the land “by the king’s road” through Edom! There are many lessons to be learned between Kadesh and “the plains of Moab by the Jordan of Jericho”, and the obstruction of Edom was, after all, part of God’s way, as giving occasion for those lessons to be learned.
Another important instruction for “the whole assembly” is found in the death of Aaron (verses 22 - 29). This was a clear intimation that “the levitical priesthood” could not bring the people into the “perfection” which God had in mind for His people (see Hebrews 7:11 - 28). Aaron had been involved in the sorrowful failure at the waters of Meribah, and this had been permitted in view of our learning that there must be a change of priest, as well as a change of law, if divine purpose was to be brought to fruition. The law and the levitical priesthood were in such connection with each other that both stood or fell together. The order of things which they represented, however full of typical meaning, as setting forth what was really connected with another order of things, was in itself incapable of bringing about what God had before Him.
So that Mount Hor is a place of special instruction for “the whole assembly”. The system which had been known to the people in the wilderness, and under which they had been tested, could not bring them into that which Jehovah purposed to give them. One need hardly say that this instruction is much more for us than it was for them. They could not possibly have entered into all that it conveyed. “These things happened to [p. 274] them as types, and have been written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).
Moses and Aaron “went up Mount Hor before the eyes of the whole assembly ... And the whole assembly saw that Aaron was dead”. No divine or dispensational ordering that could stand in relation to us as in the flesh could possibly bring us into that which God has purposed for us in love. The whole legal system, and the levitical priesthood in connection with which it was set up, must give place to another system and a priesthood “according to power of indissoluble life”. Such a priesthood was typically in view when Aaron’s staff budded, for it was the token of life in resurrection power. “The whole assembly saw that Aaron was dead”. But there had been another priest long before Aaron “of whom the witness is that he lives” (Hebrews 7:8). It is a Priest after that order who alone can bring the people of God into that which His love has purposed. A dead priest can do nothing for us, but the purpose of God is secured now representatively in a living Priest who appears before the face of God for us.
The priestly office — represented by the holy garments — has passed from Aaron to Christ. It has passed to One who ever liveth, and who holds His priesthood in relation to us, not as in the flesh, but as God’s elect and called people, and therefore in connection with all that is in God’s purpose of love for us.