Moses' denial from the land1 which was the goal for forty long years of his life, labouring for an constantly ungrateful people who were a constant burden—and an aweful pain in the neck—has to be one of the saddest stories ever told. We all come away from it with a demurral we often dare not voice, "How unfair!" Moses must often have felt that way too, we can be sure, and must have struggled with its pain and regrets before coming to terms with it (if he ever did). In the last days of his life as, on the plains of Moab, he expounded the torah to the generation of Israelites who would enter into the Promised Land (that became the book of Deuteronomy) he would raise the subject three times (1:37; 3:21-29; 4:21-22). Each time the reference to his denial from the land is set at the center of the chiasmus that frames each of the sections of texts in which they are found. (Click here to view their structures.) In this way he uses his own failing to goad and encourage the new generation of Israelites to faithfulness to Yahweh. This is the raw courage of a man who has, through his intimacy with Yahweh, developed an authenticity that is unafraid of anything.
Moses' exclusion from the land, however, is difficult for many Christians for two reasons. 1) Does the apparently mild infraction by Moses warrant such a harsh punishment? 2) Does the statement "on your account" that appears in all of Moses' recall of his denial from the land imply, as has sometimes been suggested, a "vicarious" punishment, akin to Jesus' death as a vicarious atonement?
1) Many Christians struggle with the problem of Moses' exclusion from the land because they feel that Moses' denial from entry into the land—recounted in Num 20:1-132— seems so grossly disproportionate for the seemingly minor infraction of striking the rock when he should have spoken to it. This objection, however, confuses the act with its significance.♦
The significance of Moses' act is stressed in two ways in this passage. First, the report, "so Moses took the staff,"—by repeating the words of Yahweh's command, plus the qualifier, "just as Yahweh had commanded him,"—anticipates that Moses would now speak to the rock. This anticipation is heightened by the depiction of Moses raising his arm, as he had done, just before a miraculous act, many times before (see, e.g., Exo.7:20; 14:16; 17:11). Instead Moses struck the rock, an act that is emphasized by the use of the dual noun pa'amayim to describe the manner of his striking; he struck it 'twice.' The noun (sg., pa'am) is often found in the reporting of events in which time or occasion is of particular importance. Thus, in Gen.2:23, e.g., after the long and futile search for a suitable helpmate among all that had been created, the man says of the woman presented to him, "This at last/now (happ'am) is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!" In Gen.18:32, Abraham pleas with God on behalf of any who might be righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, "May Yahweh not be angry, but let me speak just once more ('ak-happa'am)." Moses did not merely struck twice; he struck with force and determination. It was not the number that counts but the force of his action that matters. However trying the Israelites may have been on Moses, the fact remains that his response to Yahweh was his responsibility.
Secondly, Yahweh's very public response to Moses' act explains categorically the significance of what Moses had done: "you did not trust me to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites" (v.12). As far as Yahweh was concerned, Moses' act was an act of unfaith; "you did not trust me." This was the same expression Moses would eventually use to describe the failure of GenA at Kadesh-Barnea ("but you did not trust Yahweh your God") and for which GenA would be excluded from the land (Deut.1:32). The significance of Moses' action is further clarified by the impact his act had on the Israelites: Moses failed "to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites." Because he is holy, Yahweh takes his words seriously. To strike the rock when God had commanded him to speak is not just an error in matters of semantics. Moses failed to fulfil the one dominant behaviour by which Israel demonstrates she honours Yahweh in his holiness; he disobeyed. So specifically is the nature of Moses' failure spelled out here as a failure to honour Yahweh's holiness that the location where this occurred came to be known, not only as the place "where Israel quarrelled with Yahweh," but as also where Yahweh "showed/proved himself holy among them." (v13). Before Israel, Moses stood as a leader and exemplar, whose actions and behaviour shape his followers' life beyond his mere words can or do. In denying him from the land, in other words, Yahweh put right what Moses had failed to do; Yahweh showed himself holy. No one messes with Yahweh's holiness; not even one who has served Him faithfully all the years!
Regarding the question whether Moses' 'punishment' was on behalf of his people, it needs only be said that the often repeated reason "because of you" is so incomplete in thought that little can be understood of its full nuance unless one is part of the event. "Because of you" in English is simply bi, "in you," in Hebrew. It is too thin an expression on which to hang as weighty a concept as vicaricity. Furthermore, the fact that GenA was eliminated and never entered the land suggests that Moses' denial from the land gained nothing for them. And if it is argued that it was on behalf of GenB that Moses paid the price, there is nothing in the book of Deuteronomy or anywhere else in the Old Testament that suggests that GenB transgressed against Yahweh in any way that needed Moses to atone for them. An arugument from silence is an even more dangerous line on which to hang anything of even the slightest importance3
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, rev., 2021