Numbers 14:11 - Meaning and Application

Here is the righteous judgment God gave against Israel for their complaining and unbelief. Later he softened it, but it still showed what their sin deserved and what strict justice demanded. It also showed what would have happened if Moses had not stepped in. When the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle, Moses likely understood it as a call to come before God, just as he had gone up the mountain in a similar crisis before the tabernacle was set up (Exodus 32:30). So, while the people were trying to shame him, God publicly honored Moses as the one who knew his counsel.

God first showed Moses how evil the people’s sin was (Numbers 14:11). What happened between God and Israel went through Moses. When the people were angry with God, they complained to Moses (Numbers 14:2). When God was angry with them, he also spoke to Moses, since the Lord reveals his secret to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7). God complained of two things.

First, their sin. He said, “They provoke me,” or, more literally, they reject, insult, and despise him, because they will not believe him. That unbelief was the bitter root that produced all their bitterness and rebellion. Their lack of trust made this a day of provocation in the wilderness (Hebrews 3:8). Distrust of God, his power, and his promises is itself a great offense, and it lies behind many other sins. Unbelief is a serious sin (1 John 5:10), and it is a root sin (Hebrews 3:12).

Second, their continued stubbornness. God asked, “How long will they keep doing this?” He keeps account of how long sinners go on provoking him, and the longer they continue, the more he is displeased. Their sin was worse because of who they were. They were “this people,” a people chosen for a special relationship with God, and a people who professed to belong to him. The nearer people are to God in name and profession, the more they provoke him when they sin, especially when they do not trust him. Their sin was also worse because of what they had seen. They had experienced God’s power and goodness through all the signs he had shown among them. One would think that would have made them trust and obey him. The more God has done for us, the greater our guilt if we still distrust him.

God then showed Moses the sentence justice demanded, in Numbers 14:12. “What remains now but to make a full end of them?” In other words, the judgment would soon be carried out. He would strike them with a plague, leave none alive, and wipe out their name and family line. He would cast them off as his people and no longer be burdened with them. Rebellious children deserve to be disinherited.

If someone asked what would happen to God’s covenant with Abraham, God’s answer was that he could preserve it through Moses: “I will make of you a greater nation.” In this, God was testing Moses to see whether he still loved Israel as he had before, when he had preferred their good above the rise of his own family. Moses showed that he still had the same public spirit, and he could not bear the thought of building his own name on Israel’s ruin. God also teaches us here that he does not depend on sinners. If Adam and Eve had been cut off, he could have raised up another pair and still shown mercy. In the same way, if Israel had been ruined, he could have glorified his mercy in Moses.

Moses then made a humble prayer for the people. Their sin had broken a hole in the wall of their protection, and destruction would have rushed in if Moses had not stepped in at the right time and held it back. In this, he pointed to Christ, who prayed for those who persecuted him and who are an example for us, according to his own command (Matthew 5:44).

Moses’ petition was simple: “Pardon, I ask you, the sin of this people” (Numbers 14:19). In other words, “Do not bring on them the ruin they deserve.” This was like Christ’s prayer for those who crucified him, “Father, forgive them.” When a nation sins as a nation, pardon means the removal of the national punishment, and that is what Moses urgently asked for here.

He gives many strong reasons for his plea. He presses most of all the honor of God (Numbers 14:13-16). He begins there, almost suddenly, taking his cue from God’s fearful words, “I will disinherit them.” “Lord,” he says, “then the Egyptians will hear of it.” God’s honor was closer to Moses’ heart than his own interests.

He argues that both Egypt and Canaan were watching them, and great hopes had been raised about this people. The surrounding nations had heard that the Lord was among them (Numbers 14:14). The report of God’s care for them had spread far and wide, and no other people had ever stood in such a place under heaven. If they were now cut off, the news would spread quickly. The Egyptians would hear it, because they had spies among the Israelites, and the people of the land would also hear it (Numbers 14:13-14). Egypt and Canaan had strong contact with each other, even if not by this wilderness route.

If this people, who had made such a great impression, were all destroyed, and their strong claims came to nothing, the heathen would read it badly. Their light would go out at once, and the news would be carried with delight among the nations. But the nations would not see it as God’s justice bringing him honor. They would misunderstand it as a failure of his power. They would say he destroyed them in the wilderness because he was not strong enough to bring them into Canaan, as if his power had grown weak and his supply of wonders had run out (Numbers 14:16). Moses pleads, in effect, that no one attribute of God should be honored by damaging another. It would be better for mercy to triumph over judgment than for God’s power to be brought into question.

This is one of the best kinds of prayer. It is based on God’s own honor, and it matches the first request of the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be your name.” Do not bring shame on the throne of your glory. God himself uses this kind of appeal when he says, “I fear the wrath of the enemy” (Deuteronomy 32:27). We should also use it as a guide for our lives, so that we act in every way in a manner that gives no reason for God’s enemies to speak against him (1 Timothy 6:1).

Moses also appeals to God’s proclamation of his name at Horeb (Numbers 14:17-18): “Let the power of the Lord be great.” Here, power means pardoning mercy, his power over his own anger.

If God destroyed them, people would question his power. But if he kept going and finished saving them, even with enemies strong against them and with their own sins making things worse, that would show his power even more clearly. What cannot he do, who could make such a weak people victorious and such an undeserving people his chosen ones? The more danger there is that others will speak against God’s power, the more we should want to see that power honored.

To strengthen this prayer, Moses points back to what God himself had said: “The Lord is slow to anger and full of mercy.” God had spoken of his goodness as part of his glory (Exodus 34:6-7). Now Moses asks God to show that glory again in this situation. We should always draw confidence in prayer from the word of God, from the promises he has given us hope in (Psalm 119:49). In effect, Moses is saying, “Lord, act as you have spoken, for have you spoken and will you not keep your word?”

Moses rests his plea on three things God had clearly declared. First, God’s character is good in general, he is slow to anger and full of mercy. He is not easily provoked, but he is kind and tender toward those who offend him. Second, God is ready to forgive sin in all its forms. Third, even when he punishes, he does not mean to bring total ruin. That is how these words can be understood: he will by no means make a complete end when he visits the guilt of fathers on their children.

God had said in the second commandment that he would visit sin in this way, but here the meaning is that he does not wipe out families, churches, or nations all at once. That fits this moment well. Moses is not asking that God never punish this sin, because that would only encourage rebellion. He is asking that God not destroy all the people as one man (Numbers 14:15). In other words, he does not ask that they escape correction, only that they not be cut off from God’s covenant blessings.

This reminder was especially fitting because God had first revealed this same name when he pardoned their sin with the golden calf. The people’s present sin was serious, but it was not idolatry. Moses also pleads from past mercy: “As you have forgiven this people from Egypt” (Numbers 14:19). At first glance, that might seem like a weak argument. Why should God keep forgiving people who, after so many pardons, kept rebelling more and more? Human wisdom would say that such patience might encourage them in sin.

But God’s ways are far above ours, even in the pardoning of sin (Isaiah 55:9). Moses treats God’s past forgiveness as a strong reason to ask for more. “Forgive now as you have forgiven before,” is his thought. It will not damage God’s justice, and it will not lessen the praise of his mercy, to forgive again. That is why the children of Jacob are not destroyed, because they deal with a God who does not change (Malachi 3:6).