The older I get, the more I have a soft spot for what Moses went through during those forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Moses’ faith was intact, but have to put up with so much faithlessness every day from your community must have been exhausting.
It was a tricky situation for Moses from the outset. Tasked with authority over a couple million people and given the ability to perform miracles by God, he was nonetheless never the one in real authority. God was the One who called the shots; Moses was just His messenger.
Not that that simple fact ever stopped the people from complaining to Moses and about Moses about anything that bothered them. Hunger. Thirst. Fear. Leadership. It doesn’t matter the issue, the Israelites complained about it to Moses. All the time. On nearly every page. Every single chapter.
Moses reminds them in Exodus 16:9 that this “harmless” grumbling towards him was actually a sign of disbelief in God. When they complained, they didn’t complain to him, they complained to God. Any complaints about Moses were complaints about God.
That’s the nature of a messenger. In today’s world, if a foreign leader complained to an ambassador, the real complaint is directed back to the one behind the ambassador, whether that’s a president, prime minister or some other leader. The ambassador is just the messenger. He doesn’t create the message, he just delivers it.
This lack of respect towards Moses is seen later towards Samuel, when the people demand a king instead of judges. Samuel is downcast, since he feels this is a referendum on his leadership. As God reminds him, the people didn’t reject him, but God (1 Samuel 8:7).
It’s a sign of our carnal nature that we fixate on what we can see rather than the force behind it. The people knew about God, but they chose (consciously or not) to blame His messenger for their plight, even though they knew he wasn’t really the one responsible for anything.
Ironically, later in Israel’s history, the people would revere Moses as one of the greatest characters in the Old Testament. They looked at him as an example of righteousness and strength and leadership. He was seen as the bringer of the Law and the great deliverer of Israel.
But he was still just the messenger. Whether he was the target of their scorn or praise, he still had flesh and bones just like anyone else. And at the end of the day, he was just trying to follow God the best way he knew how, which just so happened to be as the leader of Israel.
Unfortunately, we treat our leaders the same way. When an elder approaches us about our sin, we get angry at them, despite their simply being the communicator of a message. When we do that to someone delivering God’s message, we do it to the One who originated the message, which is God. And that’s a dangerous line to cross.
