Bilangan 11:10-15

Moses’ Complaint to the Lord

11:10 ¹ Moses heard the people weeping ²  throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and when the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, Moses was also displeased. ³  11:11 And Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you afflicted ⁴  your servant? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that ⁵  you lay the burden of this entire people on me? 11:12 Did I conceive this entire people? ⁶  Did I give birth to ⁷  them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a foster father ⁸  bears a nursing child,’ to the land which you swore to their fathers? 11:13 From where shall I get ⁹  meat to give to this entire people, for they cry to me, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat!’ ¹⁰  11:14 I am not able to bear this entire people alone, ¹¹  because it ¹²  is too heavy for me! 11:15 But if you are going to deal ¹³  with me like this, then kill me immediately. ¹⁴  If I have found favor in your sight then do not let me see my trouble.” ¹⁵ 

Bilangan 20:10-12

20:10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the community together in front of the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, ¹⁶  must we bring ¹⁷  water out of this rock for you?” 20:11 Then Moses raised his hand, and struck the rock twice with his staff. And water came out abundantly. So the community drank, and their beasts drank too.

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ¹⁸  to show me as holy ¹⁹  before ²⁰  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ²¹ 

Mazmur 106:32-33

106:32 They made him angry by the waters of Meribah,

and Moses suffered ²²  because of them,

106:33 for they aroused ²³  his temper, ²⁴ 

and he spoke rashly. ²⁵ 

Mazmur 106:2

106:2 Who can adequately recount the Lord’s mighty acts,

or relate all his praiseworthy deeds? ²⁶ 

Kolose 1:5

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ²⁷  from the hope laid up ²⁸  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ²⁹ 

Kolose 1:11

1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ³⁰  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully

Yakobus 3:2-3

3:2 For we all stumble ³¹  in many ways. If someone does not stumble ³²  in what he says, ³³  he is a perfect individual, ³⁴  able to control the entire body as well. 3:3 And if we put bits into the mouths of horses to get them to obey us, then we guide their entire bodies. ³⁵ 

[11:10]  ¹ sn Moses begins to feel the burden of caring for this people, a stubborn and rebellious people. His complaint shows how contagious their complaining has been. It is one thing to cry out to God about the load of ministry, but it is quite another to do it in such a way as to reflect a lack of faith in God’s provision. God has to remind the leader Moses that he, the Lord, can do anything. This is a variation on the theme from Exodus – “who am I that I should lead….”

[11:10]  ² tn The participle “weeping” is functioning here as the noun in the accusative case, an adverbial accusative of state. It is explicative of the object.

[11:10]  ³ tn Heb “it was evil in the eyes of Moses.”

[11:11]  ⁴ tn The verb is the Hiphil of רָעַע (ra’a’, “to be evil”). Moses laments (with the rhetorical question) that God seems to have caused him evil.

[11:11]  ⁵ tn The infinitive construct with the preposition is expressing the result of not finding favor with God (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 12-13, §57). What Moses is claiming is that because he has been given this burden God did not show him favor.

[11:12]  ⁶ sn The questions Moses asks are rhetorical. He is actually affirming that they are not his people, that he did not produce them, but now is to support them. His point is that God produced this nation, but has put the burden of caring for their needs on him.

[11:12]  ⁷ tn The verb means “to beget, give birth to.” The figurative image from procreation completes the parallel question, first the conceiving and second the giving birth to the nation.

[11:12]  ⁸ tn The word אֹמֵן (’omen) is often translated “nurse,” but the form is a masculine form and would better be rendered as a “foster parent.” This does not work as well, though, with the יֹנֵק (yoneq), the “sucking child.” The two metaphors are simply designed to portray the duty of a parent to a child as a picture of Moses’ duty for the nation. The idea that it portrays God as a mother pushes it too far (see M. Noth, Numbers [OTL], 86-87).

[11:13]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text simply has “from where to me flesh?” which means “from where will I have meat?”

[11:13]  ¹⁰ tn The cohortative coming after the imperative stresses purpose (it is an indirect volitive).

[11:14]  ¹¹ tn The word order shows the emphasis: “I am not able, I by myself, to bear all this people.” The infinitive לָשֵׂאת (lase’t) serves as the direct object of the verb. The expression is figurative, for bearing or carrying the people means being responsible for all their needs and cares.

[11:14]  ¹² tn The subject of the verb “heavy” is unstated; in the context it probably refers to the people, or the burden of caring for the people. This responsibility was turning out to be a heavier responsibility than Moses anticipated. Alone he was totally inadequate.

[11:15]  ¹³ tn The participle expresses the future idea of what God is doing, or what he is going to be doing. Moses would rather be killed than be given a totally impossible duty over a people that were not his.

[11:15]  ¹⁴ tn The imperative of הָרַג (harag) is followed by the infinitive absolute for emphasis. The point is more that the infinitive adds to the emphasis of the imperative mood, which would be immediate compliance.

[11:15]  ¹⁵ tn Or “my own ruin” (NIV). The word “trouble” here probably refers to the stress and difficulty of caring for a complaining group of people. The suffix on the noun would be objective, perhaps stressing the indirect object of the noun – trouble for me. The expression “on my trouble” (בְּרָעָתִי, bÿra’ati) is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” According to this tradition the original reading in v. 15 was [to look] “on your evil” (בְּרָעָתֶךָ, bÿra’atekha), meaning “the calamity that you bring about” for Israel. However, since such an expression could be mistakenly thought to attribute evil to the Lord, the ancient scribes changed it to the reading found in the MT.

[20:10]  ¹⁶ tn The word is הַמֹּרִים (hammorim, “the rebels”), but here as a vocative: “you rebels.” It was a harsh address, although well-earned.

[20:10]  ¹⁷ tn The word order and the emphasis of the tense are important to this passage. The word order is “from this rock must we bring out to you water?” The emphasis is clearly on “from this rock!” The verb is the imperfect tense; it has one of the modal nuances here, probably obligatory – “must we do this?”

[20:12]  ¹⁸ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  sn The verb is the main word for “believe, trust.” It is the verb that describes the faith in the Word of the Lord that leads to an appropriate action. Here God says that Moses did not believe him, meaning that what he did showed more of Moses than of what God said. Moses had taken a hostile stance toward the people, and then hit the rock twice. This showed that Moses was not satisfied with what God said, but made it more forceful and terrifying, thus giving the wrong picture of God to the people. By doing this the full power and might of the Lord was not displayed to the people. It was a momentary lack of faith, but it had to be dealt with.

[20:12]  ¹⁹ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[20:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ²¹ tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.

[106:32]  ²² tn Heb “there was harm to Moses.”

[106:33]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text vocalizes the form as הִמְרוּ (himru), a Hiphil from מָרָה (marah, “to behave rebelliously”), but the verb fits better with the object (“his spirit”) if it is revocalized as הֵמֵרוּ (hemeru), a Hiphil from מָרַר (marar, “to be bitter”). The Israelites “embittered” Moses’ “spirit” in the sense that they aroused his temper with their complaints.

[106:33]  ²⁴ tn Heb “his spirit.”

[106:33]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew text adds “with his lips,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[106:33]  sn Verses 32-33 allude to the events of Num 20:1-13.

[106:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “[or] cause to be heard all his praise.”

[1:5]  ²⁷ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ²⁸ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ²⁹ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.

[1:11]  ³⁰ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.

[3:2]  ³¹ tn Or “fail.”

[3:2]  ³² tn Or “fail.”

[3:2]  ³³ tn Grk “in speech.”

[3:2]  ³⁴ tn The word for “man” or “individual” is ἀνήρ (anhr), which often means “male” or “man (as opposed to woman).” But it sometimes is used generically to mean “anyone,” “a person,” as here (cf. BDAG 79 s.v. 2).

[3:3]  ³⁵ tn Grk “their entire body.”