“They were as it were, complainers” (Num. xi. 1).
There is a very remarkable phrase in the book of Numbers, in the account
of the murmuring of the children of Israel in the wilderness. It reads
like this: “When the people, as it were, murmured.” Like most marginal
readings it is better than the text, and a great world of suggestive truth
lies back of that little sentence.
In the distance we may see many a vivid picture rise before our
imagination of people who do not dare to sin openly and unequivocally, but
manage to do it “as it were” only. They do not lie straight, but they
evade or equivocate, or imply enough falsehood to escape a real conviction
of conscience. They do not openly accuse God of unkindness or
unfaithfulness, but they strike at Him through somebody else. They find
fault with circumstances and people and things that God has permitted to
come into their lives, and, “As it were,” murmur. They do not perhaps go
any farther. They feel like doing it if they dared to “charge God
foolishly.”
These things were written for our warning.