Inherited Grumbling
beware the assault on Thankfulness
We heard Numbers 21:4-9 on Sunday, the miracle of the Bronze Serpent.
There’s a lot of wonderful things happening in the text (and if you’re interested, you can listen to the sermon **here** when it’s posted in a few days), but a small detail caught my attention.
The people’s grumbling sounds familiar.
1446 B. C. Complaining:
Exodus 14:11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
Exodus 16:3 ...and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
1407 B. C. Complaining
Numbers 20:4-5 Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.
Numbers 21:5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.”
But here’s the really interesting thing: these are not the same people. All those original grumblers died in the wilderness.
The Mount Hor grumbling happens after the death of Aaron (Number 20:22-29), which we can date very specifically, to the day!, via Numbers 33:38-39
Then Aaron the priest went up to Mount Hor at the command of the LORD, and died there in the fortieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, on the first day of the fifth month. Aaron was one hundred and twenty-three years old when he died on Mount Hor.
This means that the grumblers in Numbers 21 are different than the grumblers in Exodus 14, they are the next generation.
But among these there was not a man of those who were numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they numbered the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Sinai. For the LORD had said of them, “They shall surely die in the wilderness.” So there was not left a man of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. (Numbers 26:64-65)
This, then, is a learned complaining, an inherited grumpiness.
I reflect on it here, and I’m really interested to see what you think about this.
Thank you for thinking theologically with me.
Christ is risen!
PrBW
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Complaining, think you had it right when you talked about nostalgia. We live in the stories of our parents as if they are our experiences.
Why is there such a contrast between the actions of God in Numbers 21 compared to what Jesus says about the heavenly Father in Luke 11?
Numbers 21:6 - "The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died."
Luke 11:9-13 - "And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
Putting myself in the scenario Jesus lays out, I think about how if I had a child, and they were complaining and grumbling to me about the food they have, being unthankful for what they've been given, I would reprimand them and teach them a lesson in gratefulness, but I would not hurt them. I would not abuse them, and I would definitely not kill them. And yet that's what God did in Numbers 21. The Israelites were complaining about their lack of food/food choices. In return, they received deadly serpents that killed several of their people.