It’s impossible for us to ever fully understand the pressure that Moses was under on a daily basis. For over forty years, he put up with whining, disrespect, and disobedience, not to mention the daily grind of leading a group of people in the wilderness and crafting a national identity in the process.
I’m sure, for him, most days felt nearly impossible.
To be fair, he mentioned this at the beginning. Way back in Exodus 3-4, when God called him out of Midian to lead his people, he tried telling God that he wasn’t the right man for the job. He was not eloquent, unqualified, fearful—and God made him go anyways.
And now, in Numbers 11:10, Moses feels the full weight of that leadership. He’s actually caught in the middle: The people are weeping at their doorways, and God is livid. In between the two entities, as the mediator, Moses was “displeased.”
Moses does the only thing he could do in that instant, which is take his complaint straight towards God. His cry is reasonable: He didn’t birth these people, they’re not his, and yet he’s expected to provide for them all. And to top it all off, he feels like God isn’t helping at all.
Tell me that you don’t feel that same way from time to time. The task is before you, and on one side, you feel resentment. On the other, disapproval from God. Either way you look, you’ve failed.
That’s the situation that Moses was in, and because of that, he says that if God has any mercy or kindness on him at all, God should just kill him now and end his misery. Death, to him, is better than life.
Several hundred years later, Elijah felt exactly the same way (1 Kings 19). On the run from Ahab and left virtually alone to stand up for Truth, he begs God to take his life as well (1 King s19:4).
God responds with natural wonders that demonstrate His presence…and yet don’t demonstrate His presence at the same time. The point is that God has power over everything, even if we don’t recognize it.
Then, God tells Elisha about some key figures that will eventually rise up: Jehu, Elisha, and Hazael. These will continue the work in ways that Elijah can not.
This is exactly how God comforts Moses in Numbers 11. Immediately following Moses’ prayer, God tells Moses to find seventy men that He can give His power to. These men will “bear the burden” with him.
Additionally, God is going to give the people so much food that they will literally become sick of it.
Feeling overwhelmed in our duty to God is totally natural. It’s not a bad thing that we take our complaints and our anxieties to God—that’s what we’re designed to do.
But let us never forget that we were not made to bear the burden alone. Whether that’s Eve in the Garden, Timothy for Paul, or a bunch of prophesying elders in the wilderness, there is always someone we can count on to lift us up.
