20:10,11
We now come to Moses’ disobedience, which had major consequences for him. First of all at a quick reading one might think “what has Moses done wrong?”. He struck the rock, water came out of it, and he had also told the people that they were rebels. So where’s the problem? The problem is that Moses had been told to the rock (“tell the rock”), not to strike it. Why did Moses strike the rock? Probably a combination of things. Moses seems to be angry, and he does seem to have had some “anger issues”. He had seen water come from a rock before after striking it with his staff (Ex 17:6). So maybe he was actually living on his own behalf, rather than remembering that he was a servant of the Lord. So he took the line that seemed beat to him. We all need to watch our own lives, we probably need constant small course corrections to ensure we are truly following Christ. Otherwise we will end up needing a major course correction.
20:12,13
God now speaks to Moses to rebuke him. Most importantly He tells Moses that he will not now take the people into the Promised Land. God rebukes Moses for not honouring Him as holy before the people of Israel. Again, we need to constantly ask ourselves if we are honouring the Lord as holy. Moses only had power and authority because he was under God’s authority. All this happened at the waters of Meribah. It says the Lord showed Himself as holy. As far as Moses was concerned, it was just a matter of getting water from the rock. The Lord had a deeper purpose in addition to supplying water.
While Moses failed badly, we should remember that rather than being bitter about it, he faithfully led the people through the wilderness to the edge of the Promised Land. Also, he appeared with Elijah with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
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