Israel Complains

1. Why do people complain?
2. When people complain, who are they complaining about?
3. Is there a remedy for complaining?
4. Why can’t people just do what God says?

We ended the last blog with Israel headed to the promised land. I had noted how they should be a happy people but instead they were filled with complaining. If you remember, even before they left Egypt, they were complaining. In Exodus 4:31, when Moses first told the people he had been sent to take them out of Egypt, the people worshipped God, but in Exodus 5:21, when the king had made their work harder, they began to complain. When the people saw what God had done to the Egyptians in the Red Sea, as recorded in Exodus 14:31 through 15:21, the people feared and believed the Lord and they sang in worship to the Lord. But in Exodus 15:22, we again have them complaining.

The people had gone three days in the wilderness and had not found water. When they got to Marah, the water there was bitter so the people murmured against Moses and in verse 25, God cleared up their water for them. God told them at that time if they would do what was right in the sight of God, He wold take care of them. One would think after all God had done for the Israelites, they would have had enough faith to see them through, but that was not the case.

Immediately in Exodus 16, the people are again complaining against Moses. According to verse 2, the whole congregations murmured against Moses and Aaron. They said it would have been better to have died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt where they had bread to the full instead of going into the wilderness and dying of hunger. God told Moses He would rain bread from heaven for them but He was also going to test them to see if they would obey Him. God said for them to pick up only enough of this bread which was called manna for the day’s needs except on the sixth day, they were to pick up enough for two days. Moses told the people not to let any of the manna remain in their houses overnight except for the sixth night of the week. Some of the people disobeyed and the next morning, the left over manna had worms and stunk. Then when the sixth day came and they were to pick up twice as much so they would not be working on the Sabbath, some of them again disobeyed and went out on the Sabbath to find manna, but there was none.

According to Exodus 16:8, Moses told the people their murmurings were not against Moses and Aaron, but against God. Is it any different today when we complain about life and what we have to face? We may not actually complain and accuse God, but when we are complaining especially if it is about serving God, then we are complaining against God. What profit is there in doing so?

The next complaint was again about water. In Exodus 17, the people had set up camp at Rephidim and there was no water. Instead of praying to God for water, the people complained to Moses and again asked why he had brought them out of Egypt to kill them and their children and their animals with thirst. Moses cried to God and asked what should he do. God told him to go to the rock in Horeb and smite that rock and water would come forth. Moses obeyed God and the people had water.

In Chapters 18-31 of Exodus we have an account of some of the many rules and commands God gave the children of Israel. We will look at those commands in another blog, but in Chapter 32, while Moses was with God getting some of those commands, the people again are unhappy. They are unhappy because Moses has been gone a long time and the people decided he was not coming back. Here they told Aaron to make them gods to go before them. Aaron had the people to give him their gold and he actually made a calf of gold for them and then he planned a feast to the Lord for the next day. Imagine that. First you make a golden image and claim it is your god and then you proclaim a feast to God. I don’t understand Aaron’s thought process.

Anyway, God told Moses to go down to the people who had corrupted themselves by making the golden calf. God wanted to destroy them according to Exodus 32:10, but Moses pleaded for them. After all the times they had rejected Moses and complained about him, here when God is ready to destroy them, Moses pleaded for them. What compassion he showed for his people. Does that remind you of the compassion Jesus had for those who crucified Him when He asked God to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing? Moses went to the people and he too was very upset with them. He ground the golden calf into powder and put it in their water and make them drink it.

The rest of the book of Exodus and all of Leviticus are concerned with the commands from God. As I noted earlier, we will look at those in the next blog. But if we go on over to Numbers 11, we find Israel again complaining and this time God took action against them. In verse 1, God’s anger was aroused and He sent fire and burned up some of the people. Moses prayed to God and God put out the fire, but immediately in verse 4, the people are again complaining about the food. They remembered the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic from Egypt and were not happy because all they had was manna to eat. At this point Moses had a rough time. In verse 14, Moses told God he was not able to bear all the people alone and he even asked God to just kill him. Moses had to have been so discouraged after all God had done for the people for them to be acting like spoiled brats.

God listened to Moses’ cry and we find in the rest of Chapter 11 God not only provided quail for the people which numbered 600,000 footmen plus women and children, but God also took of the spirit that was upon Moses and gave to the 70 elders who prophesied in the tabernacle and in the camp. As the people were eating the quail, God was so angry with them, he smote them with a plague.

As if it was not enough for the Israelites who Moses and Aaron were leading out of Egypt to the promised land to complain against Moses, in Numbers 12 we find Aaron and Miriam his sister were also complaining against Moses because he had taken an Ethiopian woman for a wife. Aaron and Miriam asked if the Lord had only spoken by Moses. God heard this complaining and in verse 4, He told Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to come out of the tabernacle. They went out and God upheld Moses before them and then He struck Miriam with leprosy. Moses begged God to heal her, but God refused and said to let her be shut out of the camp for seven days. She was and after that she was healed.

Had the people learned their lessons after the punishments from God for their complaining, they would have taken the promised land much sooner, but they did not learn. In Numbers 13, God had Moses send out 12 spies to look over the land. They traveled the land for 40 days and came back with their report in Chapter 13. All of the men agreed the land was wonderful. They said it was a land flowing with milk and honey and it had great fruit. They even brought back a cluster of grapes that took two men to carry it back. But only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, said the Israelites could take the land. The others said the inhabitants were giants and the spies were as grasshoppers in their sight and the Israelites would not be able to go against them. The congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron in Numbers 14:2-4 and even started making plans to appoint a captain and return to Egypt.

Joshua and Caleb spoke to the people and told them how good the land was. They assured the people God would be able to bring them to the land. They told the people not to rebel against the Lord. But the congregation wanted to stone them. God was ready to smite them all but Moses again begged for them. Moses told God how the Egyptians would make fun and say God was not able to bring them to the promised land so He killed them in the wilderness. Moses asked God to pardon them as He had done in the past. God agreed but He declared none of the Israelites who were 20 years old or older except Joshua and Caleb would ever enter the promised land. Instead, they would wander in the wilderness for 40 years, a year for each day the spies were investigating the land, until all of that generation had died. Thus began the wandering in the wilderness. Those spies who had said they could not take the land were immediately killed. The people then decided to go ahead and try to take the land, but God said no. Those who tried were killed.

One would hope by now the people had learned to quit faulting Moses and to quit complaining against God, but such was not the case. In Numbers 16, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and some others gathered against Moses and Aaron and accused them of putting themselves above the people. Moses told Korah and his company to come before the Lord the next day with their censers with incense in them and let God make His choice of the leaders. Dathan and Abiram refused and accused Moses of bringing them out of a land that flowed with milk and honey and into a wilderness to kill them.

The next day, Korah and his company gathered before the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation. The Lord told Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the congregation so God could destroy the rebellious ones. Moses told the congregation to remove themselves from the wicked men. Moses told the congregation if Korah and his company died a natural death, then God had not sent Moses but if the earth swallowed them, the people would know Korah and his men had provoked the Lord. Sure enough, the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and his company and all of the goods. In addition, fire from the Lord consumed the 250 men of Korah’s company.

I cannot imagine how anyone else could complain against the Lord after having seen this destruction, but on the very next day according to Numbers 16:41, all of the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron saying they had killed the people of the Lord. What in the world was wrong with these people? God had enough and this time He told Moses to remove himself from the people. The Lord’s plague began and Moses told Aaron to take a censer and put fire from the altar on it and go into the congregation to make an atonement for the people. Aaron did so and the plague stopped but not before another 14,700 people had died.

At this point, God told Moses to have the 12 princes, one from each of the tribes, take a rod and write his name upon it. Moses was to write Aaron’s name on the rod from the house of Levi. He was to lay the rods in the tabernacle of the congregation where God would meet with him and choose a rod that would blossom. God was going to stop the murmurings of the Israelites against Moses. Moses did as God commanded and Aaron’s rod budded and brought forth blossoms and almonds. The other rods did not do so. In this manner God established the fact the Levites would be the priests for the Israelites and any of the other children of Israel coming near the tabernacle of the congregation would die. So the children of Israel moved on to the desert of Zin where Miriam died and was buried.

As one reads the previous passage where God showed His choice for the priesthood and the leaders of Israel, there might be a sense of relief in thinking the people would now accept Moses and Aaron’s leadership but it will be short lived. In Chapter 20 we have the well known account of the people again fussing at Moses because there was no water . In verses 3-8 the people again said they should have just died when the others died instead of coming to this wilderness where there was no seed, figs, vines, pomegranates, or water. Just as God had told Moses earlier to take his rod and smite the rock for water, this time God told Moses to take the rod and speak to the rock before the eyes of the people. Moses took the rod but instead of speaking to the rock, he spoke to the people and calling them rebels he asked if he and Aaron must fetch them water out of the rock. Then he struck the rock twice. The water flowed and the people drank, but in verse 12, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and told them because they had not sanctified Him in the eyes of the children of Israel, neither Moses nor Aaron would be allowed into the promised land. This had to be a crushing blow to Moses who had so many times prayed for God to forgive the people and not punish them. Afterwards, Aaron died and his son, Eleazar, took his place.

In Numbers 21, the people were prepared to take the land of Canaan, the promised land, but again in verse 5 they spoke against God and Moses asking why Moses had brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. They said their soul detested the light bread God had provided. This time God sent fiery serpents among them and when they bit the people the people died. The people admitted they had sinned against the Lord and against Moses and they asked him to pray to God to take away the serpents. The Lord told Moses to make a fiery serpent and put it on a pole and all who were bitten and looked upon the serpent would live. Moses obeyed and those who were bitten and looked upon the serpent lived. In the New Testament, we will see how this serpent raised up on the pole was a prophecy concerning our savior, Jesus Christ.

How can we use the history of Israel in our own lives? What lessons can we learn from a nation chosen by God to be His people? How is God’s chosen people of today, His church, different from these people of old? Do we complain and murmur instead of taking our problems and issues to God in prayer? Do we see the power of God, yet doubt He is in control? All too often, we may be bringing our troubles upon ourselves by refusing to obey God’s rules. In the next blog, we will be looking again at the books of Exodus and Numbers along with Leviticus and Deuteronomy as we review some of the commands God gave His people.