Numbers Chapter 20

Some time had passed since the rebellion of the people at Kadesh where they refused to trust God to lead them into the promised land and instead believed the exaggerated stories of ten men sent to spy out the land.  God had told them in Numbers 14 that the current generation of Israel would die and not see the promised land.  They would all die of natural causes.  In chapter 20 most of that generation had died and the new generation had taken on the rebellious spirit of their parents.  The Bible tells us they were at Kadesh, but this may be a different Kadesh than the one of chapter 13 since it names a different wilderness where the town was located.  It is ironic that at a place of rebellion or at least by the same name, is the place where Moses’ sister Miriam died. 

We also learn in this chapter that the brother of Moses, Aaron would die and not see the promised land as would Moses himself.  Moses was held to a higher standard than the people, since God had called him to be their leader.  His anger and frustration got the better of him as he heard the complaints of this new generation thinking they would have been better off if they were back in Egypt where their parents had described to them a “better life” as slaves of the Egyptians.  They had the nerve to even voice that they would have been better off had they all died back in Kadesh of chapter 14.  This lack of faith seems astounding since they could visibly see that God had taken care of them.  God told Moses to speak to the rock, but in his anger, he struck the rock with his staff and yelled at the people, “shall we bring water for you out of this rock?”  It was as if Moses was leaving God out of the equation and he had to provide the water for the people.  This anger and disobedience of striking the rock when he was told to speak to it caused God to announce that Moses would not enter the promised land.