18. In the fourth admonition, the apostle says, "Neither let us make
trial of the Lord, as some of them made trial, and perished by the
serpents." This, too, is a heinous sin, as is proven by the terrible
punishment. In Numbers 21 we read that after the people had journeyed
for forty years in the wilderness and God had brought them through
all their difficulties and given them victory over their enemies, as
they drew near to the promised land, they became dissatisfied and
impatient. They were setting out to go around the land of the
Edomites, who refused them a passage through their country, when they
began to murmur against God and Moses for leading them out of Egypt.
Thereupon God sent among them fiery serpents and they were bitten, a
multitude of the people perishing.
Complaining against God is here called tempting him. Men set
themselves against the Word of God and blaspheme as if God and his
Word were utterly insignificant, because his disposing is not as they
desire. Properly speaking, it is tempting God when we not only
disbelieve him but oppose him, refusing to accept what he says as
true and desiring that our own wisdom rule. That is boasting
ourselves against him. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 22: "Do we
provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?"
19. Such was the conduct of the Jews. Notwithstanding God's promise
to be their God, to remain with them and to preserve them in trouble,
if only they would believe in him and trust him; and notwithstanding
he proved his care by daily providences expressed as special
blessings and strange wonders, yet all these things availed not to
save them from murmuring. When the ordering of events accorded not
exactly with their wisdom or desire, or when, perhaps, disaster or
failure threatened, immediately they began to make outcry against
Moses; in other words, against his God-given office and message. "Why
have you led us out of Egypt?" they would complain, meaning: "If you
bore, as you say you do, the word and command of God and if he truly
designed to work such marvels with us, he would not permit us to
suffer want like this." In fact, they could not believe God's
dealings with them were in accord with his promise and design. They
insisted that he should, through Moses, perform what they dictated;
otherwise he should not be their God.
At the outset, when they entered the wilderness, after having come
out of Egypt and having experienced God's wonderful preservation of
them in the Red Sea and his deliverance from their enemy, and having
received from him bread and flesh, they immediately began to murmur
against Moses and Aaron and to chide them for leading into the
wilderness where no water was. "Is Jehovah among us, or not?" they
burst forth. Ex 17, 7. This was, indeed, as our text says, tempting
God; for abundantly as his word and his wonders had been revealed to
them, they refused to believe unless he should fulfil their desires.
20. And they persisted in so opposing and tempting God as long as
they were in the wilderness, unto the fortieth year; to which God
testifies when he says to Moses: "Because all those men that have
seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the
wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not
hearkened to my voice," etc., Num 14, 22. It was in the second year
after the departure from Egypt that the Jews murmured about the
water, and now in the fortieth year, when they should have been
humbled after so long experience, and when they whose lives covered
that period ought to have been conscious of the wonderful
deliverances they had experienced in not being destroyed with others
of their number, but being brought safely to the promised land--now
they begin anew to complain with great impatience and bitterness:
"Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?"
Or, in other words: "You often remind us you represent God's command,
and you have promised us great things. This is a fine way you take to
lead us into the land when here we have yet farther to journey and
are all going to die in the wilderness!"
21. Notice, Paul in speaking of how they tempted God says, "They
tempted Christ," pointing to the fact that the eternal Son of God was
from the beginning with his Church and with the people who received
from the ancient fathers the promise of his coming in the form of
man. They believed as we do that Christ--to use Paul's words in the
beginning--was the rock that followed them.
Therefore the apostle gives us to understand, the point of the
Israelites' insult was directed against faith in Christ, against the
promise concerning him. Moses was compelled to hear them protest
after this manner: "Yes, you boast about a Messiah who is one with
God, and who is with us to lead us; one revealed to the fathers and
promised to be born unto us of our flesh and blood, to redeem us and
bring relief to all men; a Messiah who for that reason adopts us for
his own people, to bring us into the land; but where is he? This is a
fine way he relieves us! Is our God one to permit us to wander for
forty years in the wilderness until we all perish?"
22. That such sin and blasphemy was the real meaning of their
murmurings is indicated by the fact that Moses afterward, in the
terrible punishment of the fiery serpents by which the people were
bitten and died, erected at God's command a brazen serpent and
whoever looked upon it lived. It was to them a sign of Christ who was
to be offered for the salvation of sinners. It taught the people they
had blasphemed against God, incurred his wrath and deserved
punishment, and therefore in order to be saved from wrath and
condemnation, they had no possible alternative but to believe again
in Christ.