Skeptical Sunday: Moses Is Smarter Than God?
Numbers 14 has the Israelites in the wilderness, disheartened by the information they received in Numbers 13. The spies returned with the news that the land of Canaan had fortified cities, that the people there were stronger than the Israelites themselves, and that they saw giants. So the people lost faith and began to whine and complain… again.
Even after all the wonders God had done for them and shown them, they still rebelled against him.
I am a skeptical guy, but if I had seen those wonders for myself I wouldn’t have sweated the news. I would’ve known that I had one badass deity on my side that was gonna lay some serious smackdown on my enemies, just like he did before.
But did the Israelites believe that? Noooo. They were even ready select a new leader and hightail it back to Egypt.
Joshua and Caleb tried to tell the ingrates to chill and that they had nothing to fear because God was on their side.
So what did the rest of the people do? Did they listen to reason and have faith in the God who brought them out of Egypt?
Nope, they wanted to stone Joshua and Caleb.
So God showed up and had a chat with Moses about this wabble of wowdy webels. Needless to say, he was a wittle wattled. Yes, those are Life of Brian references.
11. Then the LORD said to Moses: “How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?
12. I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13. And Moses said to the LORD: “Then the Egyptians will hear it, for by Your might You brought these people up from among them,
14. and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, LORD, are among these people; that You, LORD, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands above them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15. Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying,
16. ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness.’
17. And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying,
18. ‘The LORD is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’
19. Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
20. Then the LORD said: “I have pardoned, according to your word;
I don’t blame God for being peeved. But seriously, Moses had to point out the flaws in God’s thinking?? God needed Moses to tell him how his image would suffer if he did indeed strike the Israelites down with “the pestilence” ??
Wouldn’t an all-knowing God already be aware of such a thing? He’d know all the pros and cons that would take place from his actions, right?
So we are expected to believe that God is omniscient when a mere human outthought him? No matter how smart or wise Moses was, it couldn’t even begin to compare to the knowledge and wisdom a deity has. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
God is said to be perfect, all-knowing. Instead, in this instance, God comes off looking like an impatient hothead with genocidal tendencies who needs a human to talk sense into him and Moses comes off looking more level-headed and smarter than God. It’s supposed to be exactly the opposite.
Oh, by the way, God pardoned the Israelites and didn’t smite them with pestilence after all. But he did condemn them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. That’s forgiveness for ya.
Maybe instead of getting all worked up, God should’ve looked on the bright side of eternal life. :)
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