Not Proud

Moses was under attack. It was the worst sort of attack because it wasn’t his enemies – it was his sister and his relative Aaron who were jealous of his position.

Think about that for just a moment…why would they be jealous of his position? They weren’t jealous when he went in to see Pharaoh, or when they were up against Pharaoh’s army on the one side and a horizon of water on the other. They were never jealous when the people of Israel complained about their hardships in the wilderness.

But when the Lord gave Israel quail to eat, things began to look a little different. Through Moses, God calls out 70 leaders among the clans to meet with Moses and he pours out his Spirit on them. Even the two that rejected or neglected Moses’ instructions to be at the Tent of Meeting prophesied in the camp. Joshua saw this as a “power grab” and volunteered to go stop it, but Moses, in typical humble fashion, is not worried about threats to his leadership.

Miriam and Aaron begin to talk against Moses under the pretext of his Cushite wife, but their true motives are revealed in their words, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” (Were they among the 70 elders who prophesied by the Holy Spirit or were they referring to some other time that God spoke through them?) They are jealous. They want more recognition; they want more say.

Moses does not respond to them, but God does: First he defends Moses’ character and unique place under God’s rule. Then he punishes Miriam with leprosy.

You should probably catch verse three of Numbers chapter 12. It is a paragraph by itself. It is written in parentheses, yet it is a superlative: “(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)”

If love is not proud, then Moses was full of love for those rebellious people.

Don