During the whole of the current month we are occupied with the book of Exodus and inevitably we become preoccupied with Israel’s great leader, Moses. We wonder at the strange fact that the essential life’s work of Moses did not begin until he was eighty years of age. Indeed, his work for Israel did not commence until Moses had abandoned such ambitions as he may have had.
Some forty years earlier, it seems that Moses was ambitious to be his people’s leader, as witness the words of Stephen (Act 7. 25), “And when Moses was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: for he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them”. Yet, as Stephen recounted, Moses’ own people rejected him and he had to leave Egypt to save his life. Moses then abandoned all his ambitions to be his people’s deliverer, and settled down to a quiet life as a Midianite farmer. When the call came to him at the burning bush, some forty years later, the now old man, Moses, was alarmed, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh”. His second argument was, “But they will not believe me or hearken to my voice”. He disputed a third time, “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue”. God dealt with all these fears and Moses had no excuse left, so he said bluntly, “O my Lord, send I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send”—Send anybody, but not me!
The octogenarian had lost all the ambitions of earlier days. Indeed, the covenant of God with his people had been forgotten by Moses, and, having finally accepted the commission, this had to be put in order, as it was, by Zipporah, Moses’ wife.
But, having accepted the challenge, Moses never looked back, and we have a remarkable story of a man who combined determination and great personal meekness. The record of his earlier days shows his determination, but the meekness is not apparent. Perhaps his days in obscurity were planned by God just to develop this necessary trait. On the one later occasion when his meekness forsook him (at the rock in Horeb) God’s disfavour was immediately shown.
In the case of Aaron, we find a person who required the support of a steadfast character such as Moses. During Moses’ absence on Mount Sinai, Aaron was unable to resist the wishes of the people. They demanded idols and Aaron was quick to satisfy their wishes. When one realises that Moses had only been away from them about a month, the faithlessness of the people is the more surprising. It was necessary for a furnace to be built to melt down the various gold ornaments, after which the metal had to be moulded or otherwise cut to form the golden calf. All this would not be the work of a moment. Moses returned at the end of forty days, by which time Aaron had built an altar and was making sacrifice to the calf so it is evident that the departure from faithfulness had been very rapid. The excuse made by Aaron must have been one of the lamest in history! “You know these people were set on mischief. They didn’t know what had happened to you (!!) so demanded other gods. So they gave me this gold; I cast it into the fire, and out came this calf”. Anybody’s fault but his own! And the people, naked at Aaron’s suggestion, had obviously invented some revolting rites. (Exod. 32. 25)
And these were the people for whom Moses prayed to God that, if He would not forgive them, then “Blot me, I pray Thee, out of the book which Thou hast written”.
We have already mentioned the incident at the rock of Horeb. On the first visit to this place (Exod. 17), Moses was enjoined by God to smite the rock, a rock on which God would be present. Many years later, after the death of Miriam, the people reached the rock at Meribah a second time, in similar circumstances of thirst as before. (Numbers 20) This time Moses and Aaron cried out, “Must we fetch you water out of this rock”, as though such act were by their own power. The presence of God was forgotten by the indignant Moses, but this one failure only brings out with greater emphasis the steadfastness of the man who was “very meek, above all men which were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12. 3).
It was in Horeb, too, that Moses announced God’s promise of a Prophet “like unto” himself. About one and a half millenia after this incident, Jesus of Nazareth stood and cried, “If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink”. And many of the people, hearing his saying, said, “Of a truth this is the prophet”. The rock of God’s presence had been recognised by some! The ancient Israelites had been “baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea—and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10. 2-4).
The people, in their idolatry, were naked, and Paul makes quite clear the fact that immorality was rampant (1 Cor. 10. 8). And his warning to us is that we be not idolaters or murderers. In this context, it is well that we study this chapter most carefully.
The more we meditate on these incidents, the more are we made aware of the great contrast between Moses and Aaron. Yet Aaron did his duty whilst Moses stood by him; the younger brother was strength to the older.
Moses, of course, became the most wonderful type of Christ that the world has known. It is only by the small failures shown by him that we are reminded that he was human as we are, and without which evidence we might not see so clearly the supremacy of the prophet “like unto” Moses, and who showed no weaknesses at all.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One