Reading: Numbers 11-13, Psalm 43

Video games have an interesting history, but not all video games are interesting. In 1995, comedians Penn and Teller created a series of video games among which was the simulation game Desert Bus. If you have never heard of this, let me assure you, it is like no other “game.” The player is the driver of a bus on a route from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. The game proceeds in real time and the bus has a maximum speed of 45 mph, so scoring a point requires 8 hours, upon which the player can make the return trip. The game cannot be paused. On these trips, nothing happens. It is the peak of road trip experiences.

Moses could only dream of a road trip as fun as a game of Desert Bus. The people of Israel demonstrate that they are grumblers of the first quality. Despite the tremendous things they have seen done for them, the very first incident we hear of on their trip from Sinai to Canaan is unaccountable grumbling. The people are unhappy because they have only the manna to eat. Manna. The miraculous food that appears every morning for them to eat in a sparse wilderness. So they complain and grumble about their “misfortunes.” This brings about destruction in some of the camp. Remember that God had warned the people that if he was in their midst this might happen- God is holy, his presence is dangerous to the human problem, and these humans definitely have it.

Even Moses is starting to crack. He complains to God that he is overwhelmed by these people and can’t bear them anymore. So God sets up a broader leadership structure. Back in Exodus, on the advice of his father-in-law Jethro, Moses had delegated dispute resolution. Now God is having him delegate leadership responsibilities as well. The selected elders of Israel receive God’s spirit and they prophesy. There is a little story where Joshua, Moses’ protege, gets skittish about people other than Moses speaking from God. But Moses recognizes something: he is not able to carry the burden of being God’s messenger alone. He wishes everyone could hear from God directly. This is no throwaway line- Moses is expressing a hope that God’s spirit would fall on all the people. This will come up again, though not for a while.

In response to the people’s grumbles, God sends quail into the camp. Quail up to their necks. They eat until they are sick of it, literally. God sends a sickness with the quail, so the very thing the people thought they wanted was causing their destruction. This is another theme that will be showing up again.

The next scene is a confrontation between Moses and his siblings, Aaron and Miriam. They used his marriage to a foreign woman as leverage against his authority. There are two issues in this drama; let’s tease them out. First, there is the challenge of Moses having a foreign wife, a “Cushite”. The term is somewhat ambiguous, but it most likely means Arabian or Ethiopian. We know the story of his marriage to Zipporah, and it is possible this is the woman in question, as she could have been of Arabian as well as Midianite descent. It is also possible Zipporah had died and Moses married another woman. Second, Moses gets challenged on his authority. Here is as good a place as any to deal with this- Moses claimed to speak from God. He told Israel to do some weird and crazy things. Pretty soon we are going to run up against Israel doing things that are morally very questionable, up to and including near genocide. I have already made the point that attempting to apply human standards of morality to God is nonsensical- God is not in the same category as humans, and for us to judge God is like the character in a book judging it’s author. There is just no standing or means to do so. Moses, however, is another matter. The person who claims to speak from God is subject to questioning, and when there is cause, should be.

Now, let’s look at how this resolves. First, is Moses’ marriage to the foreign woman a reason for his authority from God to be challenged? The answer here is a pretty resounding “No.” This challenge to Moses’ authority is not rooted in a morally objectionable action, but in jealousy of his position. Second, how does Moses respond to this challenge? The manner in which someone who claims to speak from God answers these challenges says a great deal about whether they are trustworthy. Moses makes no defense of himself, but turns to God to judge. This will become a theme in the challenges he faces throughout the book of Numbers. Moses, God’s instrument, does not make his own rules. He allows God to judge between himself and any challengers. In this case, God makes a pretty strong statement in support of Moses: he tells Miriam and Aaron that Moses alone is faithful among all his people, and that God speaks to him face to face. He then strikes Miriam with leprosy. (Some might ask, why not Aaron? He was the High Priest, despite his faults. For him to be leprous would have huge consequences for all the people, as he could not carry out the atonement.) Moses then begs for God to heal her, and he does.

These challenges to Moses’ authority are followed by one of the great disasters in the history of Israel. The people arrive at the edge of the promised land, and God has Moses send representatives of each tribe, men who were leaders in their tribes, to travel through the land and bring a report about it. This is an amusing contrast to the story of Jacob’s sons in Egypt being accused by Joseph of being spies. Now their descendants actually are spies in their own ancient homeland. In any case, they go and travel around the land, then bring a report back to the people that while the land is pretty great, it is also extremely dangerous and they could never hope to conquer it.

It is customary to think of the ten spies who spoke this way as cowardly and faithless. There is another possibility, though. These men were all called chiefs of their tribes. The surrounding stories in Numbers are all about challenges to the authority of Moses (and by association, God). It is my belief that this story is also about authority. The two faithful witnesses, who believed God would allow them to conquer the land, were Caleb and Joshua. We already know Joshua as Moses’ protege. Caleb was a chief of the tribe of Judah, who according to the blessing of Jacob way back in Genesis, was the rightful leader of Israel. So the two guys with the actual standing to challenge Moses do not. The ten who don’t, as we shall see tomorrow, begin to foment rebellion.

This trip to the promised land was short, but very eventful. This is no Desert Bus. The passengers all want to drive the bus. They struggle with God and man.