"They left Rephidim and camped in the Desert of Sinai. They left the Desert of Sinai and camped at Kibroth Hattaavah." (Numbers 33:16-17) Moses is simply providing us with a list in this chapter, not going back over the events that took place at these locations. However, I am sure anytime this list was read to or read by the Israelites, in their minds they recalled each thing that occurred at each place, which is what you and I have been doing. Today we'll look back at some campsites where Israel encountered difficulties but we'll also learn that Israel was given a long series of campsites where life was calm and peaceful.
What happened while the people camped in the Desert of Sinai? The Lord gave the ten commandments to Moses on the mountain. The people fashioned a golden calf while Moses was away, so that when Moses returned and found them celebrating an idolatrous feast, he became angry and threw the tablets of the ten commandments on the ground and broke them. But God was merciful to Israel. He didn't cast her aside but instead provided a second set of tablets. He gave Israel the law to follow. He gave Israel the tabernacle and the sacrificial system so people could, by faith, bring an offering as a substitute for the death each of them owed for their sins. The Lord kept taking Israel toward the promised land in spite of all the times she doubted, stumbled in faith, grumbled against the Lord, and rebelled. Aren't we thankful the Lord is a God of second chances, and third chances, and a hundred chances, and thousands of chances? God has shown us all the same kind of mercy He showed Israel.
At Kibroth Hattaavah, where the people camped after leaving the Desert of Sinai, many grumbled against the Lord and missed the meat from Egypt that they no longer had at their disposal. Doubtless, much of the food they were supplied by their Egyptian taskmasters was unclean by the Lord's standards, but there had been plenty of it and in the wilderness they craved even the unholy delicacies of Egypt when faced with manna day in and day out. They even went so far as to say, "We were better off in Egypt!", which is the same as saying, "We prefer slavery to freedom. We prefer the past to the future the Lord has planned for us. We prefer a land of sin to a land where we can openly practice our religion without fear or oppression." Because of the seriousness of preferring slavery (a symbol for sin in the Bible), and because of thinking the past was better than the present or the future, a plague broke out at Kibroth Hattaavah and killed a portion of the congregation.
But the Lord didn't abandon the people. He didn't allow them all to die at Kibroth Hattaavah and He didn't turn His back and walk away from them there, leaving them to perish in the wilderness. "They left Kibroth Hattaavah and camped at Hazeroth." (Numbers 33:17) At Hazeroth Moses' siblings began to talk against him and to utter racial slurs against the Cushite woman he had married. (As we discussed when we studied Numbers 12, Moses' Midianite wife, Zipporah, was never mentioned again after Exodus 18. It is believed by most scholars that she died sometime between Exodus 18 and Numbers 12, though a second opinion held by a minority of scholars is that Moses divorced her because in Exodus 18:2 we were told Moses had "sent away his wife Zipporah" and their two sons back to Zipporah's father's house before he went down to Egypt to ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Being "sent away" or "put away" is a phrase from the Bible that can be taken to mean a man has divorced his wife. However, later in Exodus 18 we find Zipporah, Moses' two sons, and Zipporah's father rejoining Moses near Mount Sinai after he brought the people out of Egypt. I personally do not believe Moses divorced Zipporah even though she was bitterly angry toward him before he went down to Egypt. If Moses had "put her away" with a certificate of divorce then we would not later have found her joining him in Sinai with the children, nor would we expect her father to come out and help Moses in the wilderness the way he did.)
Miriam and Aaron felt they should be just as important as Moses, so they grumbled at Hazeroth over the authority given to Moses by God over the entire congregation and over Miriam and Aaron themselves. Stirring up prejudice against Moses' wife was a method they were using to stir up distrust among the people; if Moses married outside his culture (likely a marriage with a woman from among the "mixed multitude" of people who came out of Egypt with the Israelites) could he be trusted to lead the Israelites faithfully? Miriam and Aaron were trying to get the people to question whether or not Moses was living within the Lord's will. If he wasn't in the Lord's will when he chose this particular wife, could he be trusted as the Lord's messenger? As we discussed when going over Numbers 12, Moses was a man who followed the Lord so closely that it's impossible to believe he'd have married a pagan wife. She either converted to the God of Israel before leaving Egypt (which is why she left Egypt with the Israelites) or she converted in the wilderness. But Miriam and Aaron spoke hateful words against her because of their envy over Moses' authority. Miriam was likely the ringleader of this rebellion since we find the Lord judging her the most harshly, but in Numbers 12 she and Aaron repented after the Lord struck her with leprosy and Moses prayed for her to be healed. Then the Lord took the congregation of Israel on from Hazeroth.
"They left Hazeroth and camped at Rithmah. They left Rithmah and camped at Rimmon Perez. They left Rimmon Perez and camped at Libnah. They left Libnah and camped at Rissah. They left Rissah and camped at Kehelathah. They left Kehelathah and camped at Mount Shepher. They left Mount Shepher and camped at Haradah. They left Haradah and camped at Makheloth. They left Makheloth and camped at Tahath. They left Tahath and camped at Terah. They left Terah and camped at Mithkah. They left Mithkah and camped at Hashmonah. They left Hashmonah and camped at Moseroth. They left Moseroth and camped at Bene Jaakan. They left Bene Jaakan and camped at Hor Haggidgad. They left Hor Haggidgad and camped at Jotbathah. They left Jotbathah and camped at Abronah. They left Abronah and camped at Ezion Geber." (Numbers 33:18-35) The Bible provides no additional information about most of these campsites, with the exception of some which will be mentioned in Deuteronomy as having wells or streams of water. It appears as if the travels between Hazeroth and Ezion Geber were uneventful. We find no mention of troubles on the inside (rebellions or conflicts inside the camp) or troubles on the outside (attacks by the enemy). I think a time of peaceful traveling with plenty of fresh water is exactly what Israel needed at this stage in her journey.
The Lord provides us with peaceful places---times when life is going along pretty routinely without any major ups or downs. I'm going to go against the grain here by going against a popular saying that you may have heard in church or in the religious community: "In this life you're either going into a storm, in a storm right now, or coming out of a storm." I respectfully disagree. We may go through a series of years in which it seems like one problem after another crops up, but at the proper times the Lord gives us places of rest, just as He caused Israel to camp in a number of places where nothing out of the ordinary happened. At several campsites in a row we found trouble in the congregation: some were troubles they brought on themselves and some were troubles that attacked them from the outside. But as we've seen in verses 18-35 above, the Lord provided Israel with eighteen locations in a row where life unfolded in an ordinary, routine, peaceful manner. If the Lord did not give us peaceful campsites, we'd burn out and become too weary to fight discouragement. We'd give in to the trials and tribulations of this fallen world. The human body and the human mind were not designed to operate under unremitting stress day after day and year after year with no break in the action. Even the Lord Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man at the same time, needed to rest and recuperate. He had to get alone with God. He had to sleep. He had to take time to provide His body with food and water. He had to take His closest friends, the disciples, on quiet spiritual retreats to enjoy a time of friendship and fellowship in the faith. If the Lord Jesus Christ needed these peaceful campsites, then you and I certainly need them and so did the congregation of Israel in the wilderness.
There have been periods of time in my own life---sometimes long stretches of time, sometimes short stretches of time---in which things pretty much went along the same way day after day with no major highs or lows. Those were times when no dark storm clouds loomed above me. Those were times when I wasn't being tossed by the waves. Those were times when I wasn't just emerging from a fierce storm and trying to get my bearings again. They were just ordinary days filled with routine things. And I'm thankful for them. I wish I was in one of those times right now. I'm currently trying to steer my boat through tossing waves while occasionally having to bail water out, but this season won't last forever. It may feel like it will last forever, and I'm sure Moses sometimes thought the storm would never end during the years he led Israel in the wilderness, but we've just seen the Lord providing eighteen campsites where there must have been sunny skies and peaceful waters. So no, life is not a continual succession of one storm after another with no relief anywhere along the way. Life also contains places where it can be said, "He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me." (Psalm 18:19) Your storm may have been going on for a long time or you may be going through one storm after another. But a spacious place---a pleasant place---is somewhere up ahead. I can't see the shore from here. I can't even look up right now from battling these waves. But at the right time our Lord will say to the storm, "Peace, be still!", and all will be calm for a season. The Lord gave Israel a time of calm in the wilderness. He will do the same for us.
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