You know you really love someone, when you do not hate them for breaking your heart. -Taehyung
Numbers 14:11,12 11 The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
The context of these verses is a point in time when the Israelites are in horrible despair. Nothing is going right, and they want an easier time with life situations. Of course, we would all prefer better life situations! The people are in such despair, that when they confront Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua, God seems to express frustration — a desire to just kill them all and start over again with a new chosen people. What is going on?
To fully understand what is happening, we need to see God’s perspective. Is God reacting in the heat of the moment, putting emotions ahead of the situation, and reacting with pained indifference? From what we know about God, His reaction and response is ALWAYS measured and controlled, and done out of love. How do we reconcile that perspective to this story?
Lets give it a human perspective for a moment.
“My children, I want you all in bed at 8:30pm. No questions!” In response, the children balk and do not want to listen. A warning is given: “My children, in bed at 8:30 or you will be punished!” Now, they listen.
It’s the same command, but this time with a threat. The parent has no gleeful desire to inflict punishment, but the children need to learn how to internalize something that they do not want. By exercising compliance, the children come into a deeper relationship and perspective on the parent’s request.
Moses and Aaron take the lead and plead with God – exactly the response God wants and expects. By questioning, they come to an understanding about what God wants them to understand. Through a back and forth exchange with God, people come into a deeper understanding and relationship with God. In this case, God gives the people the choice they want, after He is certain that they understand what they are dong in their relationship with Him. They are not going to die. They are not going to be forced to enter the promised land. Their choice is to live the rest of their natural lives – as a nomadic people who do not want God’s promise fulfilled.
This apparent ‘anger’ from God happens in a number of stories in the Old Testament. In every case, the target of the anger has a chance to ask God about it, and, through progressive discovery and revelation, the target person discovers God is not fickle. He is merely moving us from selfish and self-focused to a state of not selfish and God focused.
Selah.
