Lessons #323 and 324
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Death of some Israelites in the desert (1 Cor 10:5-13)
… 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. 11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
The message of 1 Corinthians 10:5-13 that we have been considering is that Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him. We have noted that this message implies that we are being warned against the evil desires of some of the Israelites the Lord killed in the desert. Subsequently, the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul provided us examples or results of their evil desires we should avoid. In effect, we are given some of the evil things they did. The first of the evil things that some of the Israelites of exodus generation desired or were guilty that led to their death is idolatry. The second is sexual immorality. The third is constantly doubting of God’s power and faithfulness to provide for Israel. This failure is described as testing or putting Christ to the test as stated in the first part of 1 Corinthians 10:9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did. In our last study, we also noted that it is a sin to test the Lord or to put Him to the test. This assertion, we indicated, may cause problem due to the examples we find in the Scripture in which either God invited believers to test Him, or He was not angry that He was tested. Because of these, we raised the question of when it is correct to test the Lord. To answer this question, we also stated that we need to consider the examples in which either God invited humans to test Him or where He was put to test by humans without Him being angry. So, we begin with these examples.
A first example where the Lord was put to test, but He was not angry or at least His action implies that He welcome it was His interaction with Gideon when He commissioned him to be the agent of Israel’s deliverance from the Midianites. Gideon put out a test by which he would be sure that God was sending him to carry out the task of deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Midianites as we read in Judges 6:36–38:
36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
Gideon received the proof as he requested. In effect, God did exactly what he asked. So, it would seem Gideon got his confirmation in the way he asked of God, but he was not content, so to speak, in that he went a step further in his request for another sign to confirm that the Lord was sending him, as we read in Judges 6:39–40:
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
The Lord granted the request of Gideon without being angry. There are probably possible reasons God was not angry with him. Gideon pleaded with God not to be angry with him before he made his second request of confirmation that God was sending him to the difficult task of delivering the Israelites from the hands of the Midianites. Another reason is that because Gideon pleaded with God indicates that he believed in the reality of God and His power. In fact, it is probably because he believed in the power of God that he asked for a sign that he believed only God could grant. Another possible reason is that God would have considered Gideon as functioning in a way that is in keeping with His word in wanting two independent witnesses to convince him that God was sending him. This would be in keeping with the instruction of God to Israel regarding how to establish the truth of a matter before a person is convicted of a crime as we read in Deuteronomy 19:15:
One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
It is true that the instruction given here has to do with deciding a case of someone accused of a crime, but the principle applies even for a situation that does not involve a crime. If a person wants to be sure of something on which the person is to take an action that is of dire consequence, it would be necessary to be certain of the fact on which a person would act. Therefore, it is possible that Gideon would have reasoned in his mind that leading Israel into war is such a serious undertaking that he would not want to rely only in one witness of the first miracle, so he wanted a second witness of miracle. If this is the case, God would have not judged Gideon as not trusting Him or doubting Him but of applying the criterion He gave for establishing the truthfulness of a matter. It is probably for this reason that the Lord was not angry with Gideon or charged him of putting the Lord to the test.
10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” 13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. 16 But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17 The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”
God invited Ahaz to ask for a sign from Him but the king refused, stating that he would not put the Lord to the test. On a surface reading of the response of Ahaz to the Lord’s invitation to ask for a sign, his answer seemed to be due to faith that is, to say that he walks by faith not by sight as faithful believers should in accordance with the declaration of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7:
We live by faith, not by sight.
Or we could say that Ahaz refused to ask for a sign because of honoring the word of God that commands against putting the Lord to test. However, none of these is likely because despite God’s goodness to him, he was not a faithful king of Judah in that he was not described in the manner of the faithful kings of Judah that were portrayed as believers instead he was described negatively as we read in 2 Kings 16:2–3:
2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
Ahaz probably did not want any sign from the Lord because he had made up his mind to seek help from the Assyrian king instead of trusting in the Lord as indicated by his action recorded for us in 2 Kings 16:7–9:
7 Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, “I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” 8 And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. 9 The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it. He deported its inhabitants to Kir and put Rezin to death.
Anyway, the Lord offered Ahaz the opportunity to ask for a sign knowing that he would not do so since His plan did not call for him to take up the invitation given to him to ask for a sign from the Lord. The Lord’s plan was to give a sign that involves a woman giving birth to a special child. We are not at this point concerned with the interpretation of the sign but simply to recognize that God gave sign to Ahaz despite his refusal to ask for a sign. Since the Lord is the One that invited to be tested then His invitation to Ahaz could not be wrong. Anyway, there is still another example we need to consider before we deal with the issue of when it is proper to test the Lord in a way that would not become a sin.
Another example that involves testing God or God inviting someone to put Him to the test is the Lord’s invitation to Israel that returned from Babylonian captivity to test Him by fully carrying out tithing instruction as we read in Malachi 3:10:
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
This passage is certainly one of the favorites of preachers for advocating tithing although they ignore the uniqueness of the instruction of bringing tithe to God’s house. First, they ignore the purpose of bringing food to the storehouse is to provide food for the priests and Levites who served in the temple. Of course, some of them falsely equate preachers to priests and Levites. Second, they ignore the fact that God’s house refers to the temple in Jerusalem. No house of worship today is the temple of God in the sense of the temple in Jerusalem since all believers form the temple of God. It is not my intention to deal with the doctrine of Tithing at this point since we have dealt with that in detail in our study of Genesis 14, but I want to give a very simple reason for recognizing that this command to bring tithe does not apply to Christians. This reason is that we are not under the Levitical priesthood but under the priesthood of Jesus Christ and so nothing that was used in worship under the Levitical priesthood applies today. This truth is implied by the statement recorded in Hebrews 7:12:
For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.
This passage in Hebrews tells us clearly that because of the change in priesthood from Levitical to that of the Lord Jesus Christ then there must be a change in law. A part of the change in law is that everything used in worship under Levitical priesthood no longer applies to those of us under the priesthood of Christ. If tithe is given, that violates the principle given in Hebrews and also creates another problem of who is to benefit from it since there are no specialized priests in the church of Christ. Anyway, as I said, our concern at this point is not with tithing but with the invitation of the Lord that He gave to Israel.
The invitation again is given in the expression of Malachi 3:10. Test me in this. The invitation of the Lord to Israel is for the people to prove Him in a positive manner by obeying His command regarding tithing as given in the OT Scripture. Thus, the invitation is for Israel to trust the Lord so as to obey His instruction. Israel must have faith that the Lord would keep to His word. Thus, this test that the Lord invited Israel to respond to involves faith and obedience. This observation helps us in answering the question of when it is proper to test the Lord.
The answer to the question of when it is proper to test the Lord is that whenever the test is an expression of faith and obedience. This means that when we claim a particular promise of God’s word and we say to God that we expect Him to be faithful to His word, we are testing the Lord in a positive way because we believe His promise and His person. To be clear, it is wrong to test God in the sense of asking Him to do something when we doubt His ability to do whatever it is we want Him to do and also when we live in disobedience to Him. The point is that when we have faith and live in obedience to God’s word, and ask the Lord to do something to demonstrate His power that is not the same as challenging Him to act because we doubt His power to act or to be faithful to us as Israelites constantly did in the desert. Of course, we should recognize that it would be wrong to test the Lord in the sense that we will do something that is uncalled for or foolish and then expect God to prove Himself. This point we have made was demonstrated when Satan wanted Jesus Christ to jump off the highest point of the temple with the justification that God has promised to keep Him from being harmed as we read in Matthew 4:5–6:
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
There is no reason for a person to see danger and run towards it because of God’s promise to protect believers. This was, in effect, what Satan wanted Jesus to do but He responded to Satan that doing such would be putting God to the test as we read in Matthew 4:7:
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
The response of the Lord Jesus here indicates that we should not act foolishly and then force God to do something for us because of His promise to care and protect the believer. The point is that if we do something that is uncalled for and ask God to do something to counter the effect of what we are to do, such would be wrong kind of testing God. Again, you cannot see danger and run towards it and ask the Lord to prove Himself as that would be testing Him in a wrong way. Anyway, we should also be careful that when we want God to prove Himself that we are not governed by lust as the Israelites were when they requested meat from the Lord as stated in Psalm 78:18:
They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.
Israelites in their craving or lust for meat, wanted God to prove that He cared for them by providing what they lusted after or craved. Their desire or request was considered putting the Lord to the test in the wrong way. Thus, we must be careful that we are not asking the Lord to prove Himself to meet our lust or craving. Anyway, it is important that we put God to the test as an expression of our faith as we live in obedience to His word.
It is important we understand that we are not to routinely test God or put Him to test as He may do us since it is His prerogative to put us to test. There are at least three reasons God may test us based on the information provided in the Scripture for God’s testing of His covenant people. God may test us to purify us as that was the reason for testing Israel according to Zechariah 13:8–9:
8 In the whole land,” declares the LORD, “two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it. 9 This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”
The Lord indicated that two-thirds of the people would be struck down and die while a third would survive. It is this third that will be refined. This refining of the remnant is to be understood as purifying them. The purified remnant would be tested. This passage does not tell us how the Lord would purify and test the remnant but from what the Lord said through Prophet Isaiah, we may deduce that suffering is one way the Lord purifies and tests His people as we may gather from Isaiah 48:10:
See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
The phrase the furnace of affliction is an imagery for a situation of pain and trouble that in the end should have a positive outcome. The point is that the Lord could purify us by putting us through some form of suffering as a test. Another reason the Lord may test us is to prove our obedience to Him as He did with Israel as we read in Exodus 16:4:
Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.
The clause and see whether they will follow my instructions is another way of saying that the Lord would test Israel to see if they would be obedient to His word. Of course, some of them failed the test because they did not obey the Lord’s instruction through Moses. We should recognize that certain individuals around us are probably put in our way by the Lord to use them to test our obedience to His word as He did with Israel when He left some of the nations without destroying them in the time of the conquest of Canaan so He would use them to see if Israel would obey His word, especially that of avoiding idolatry as we read in Judges 2:20–22:
20 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did.”
Still another reason the Lord may test us is for us to prove that we love Him. This is the reason the Lord gave for testing Israel as we read in Deuteronomy 13:1–3:
1 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
The Lord indicated that He may grant miracles through a prophet whose message would be false to test if the Israelites love Him so that they would reject any enticement to idolatry. The same test may be going on today through some who perform miracles but their message about Christ is wrong or their teaching of the word of God does not comply with truth. The test would be whether one would be impressed with miracles that the person ignores the truth of God’s word. Anyway, the point is that God has the prerogative to test us but not the other way round, that is, it is not for us to routinely put Him to the test in a wrong manner as we have discussed.
We have answered the question of when it is correct to test the Lord. However, there is one more issue that we should consider. It is how the failing of Israel in testing Christ applies to the Corinthians and so to us because of the instruction of 1 Corinthians 10:9 We should not test the Lord. Some of the Corinthians were involved in eating food sacrificed to idols in pagan temples and so that exposes them to possibility of sexual immorality. Their conduct is tantamount to testing the Lord’s patience to see how far they could go with such conduct. Anyway, the Corinthians are to stop such practices or any other practice that exposes them to idolatry and sexual immorality. For us, testing the Lord would involve living a lifestyle that is incompatible with God’s word with the belief that nothing would happen to us because we are secured in our salvation. Such an attitude must be avoided. In any event, we should be careful not to put the Lord to test. This brings us to the final example or result of evil desires of some of the Israelites of the exodus generation that died in the desert.
The fourth of the evil things that some of the Israelites of exodus generation desired or were guilty that led to their death is grumbling against the Lord and Moses. It is this evil that all believers as represented by the Corinthians are commanded to avoid in 1 Corinthians 10:10 And do not grumble. Commentators are divided regarding the incident in the OT the apostle had in mind when he used this command. Some think the apostle was thinking of the grumbling of the Israelites after they received the discouraging report of the ten spies sent to explore the land of Canaan that is reported in Numbers chapter 14 that we will get to shortly. Others think that the apostle had in mind those who grumbled against Moses because of God’s judgment against Korah and his followers reported in Numbers chapter 16 that we will also get to shortly. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the apostle was probably concerned with the entire grumbling of the Israelites in the desert as we will explore shortly.
Anyway, the Corinthians and so all of us believers are commanded to avoid grumbling as in the command of 1 Corinthians 10:10 And do not grumble. The apostle used the Greek form of the command he used in verse 7 but not in verses 8 and 9. In verses 8 and 9, the apostle used an exhortation in which he encouraged the Corinthians to join him in the actions mentioned in these two verses. The form he used in verse 10 that is the same as in verse 7 may here imply that the Corinthians might be guilty of the vice he referenced and so he wants them to stop doing it.
The vice or evil that Apostle Paul wants the Corinthians, and so all believers, to avoid is “grumbling” against God and those in spiritual leadership. The word “grumble” is translated from a Greek word (gongyzō) that may mean “to whisper,” that is, to express oneself in low tones of affirmation as it is used to describe what a Jewish crowd did about Jesus as we read in John 7:32:
The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.
The word may mean “to complain” about someone as some religious leaders did about Jesus as we read in Luke 5:30:
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 10:10, it means “to grumble,” understood as “a form of rebellious discontent” that involves wallowing in self-pity as reflected in the complaints the Israelites made against God and Moses during the wanderings in the desert. The Israelites of the exodus generation did this in several occasions that we need to consider to learn something about grumbling.
The first record of grumbling of the Israelites of the exodus generation involves lack of water that occurred twice. The first grumbling about water occurred in the desert of Shur, not too long after they observed the Lord divide the Red Sea, so they passed on dry land and after they joined Moses in the praise of God for what He did for them as we read in Exodus 15:22–24:
22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”
There is a sense the Israelites seemed to have grown accustomed to complaining bitterly when things do not go their way. Before the Lord divided the Red Sea and because of the Egyptian army that was marching towards them when they left Egypt, they complained that Moses should have left them in Egypt instead of leading them out only to be slaughtered by the Egyptians as we read in Exodus 14:11–12:
11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
The grumbling or complaining attitude of the Israelites seemed to have been because of their slavery experience. They groaned and certainly complained to one another about their experiences since it is their groaning that went before God as we read in Exodus 2:23:
During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
The Lord was gracious to them in that He responded to their groaning or complaining, probably to each other or in a general sense to no one, by sending Moses to rescue them from slavery as the Lord communicated to him, according to Exodus 3:7–10:
7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Israel’s leaders were pleased when they heard that the Lord was concerned about their plight as we read in Exodus 4:31:
and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.
One then wonders why the people who were pleased that God was concerned about them would have complained in the manner they did to Moses about lack of drinking water unless, their leaders were not involved in the grumbling. Furthermore, the Israelites had witnessed the Lord performed the miracle of dividing the Red Sea. Therefore, they should have realized that the One who divided the Sea could provide water in the desert. But this was not the case. Instead, they complained and made remarks in a way to cause problem or to blame Moses for their plight. It is not that they should not have requested Moses to do something about lack of water they faced but it is the manner in which they did it that was wrong. That their attitude was wrong is implied in their question of Exodus 15:24 What are we to drink?” It is true that Moses is their leader, but they should have recognized that the Lord appointed him to the office he held. Therefore, it would have been more appropriate for them to request him to pray to the Lord to provide them with water instead of taking a tone with Moses that indicates their dissatisfaction or of blaming him for the difficulty they faced. My point is that if they had different approach for tabling their need of water before Moses they would not have been guilty of grumbling. Anyway, another occasion when the Israelites grumbled or complained because of lack of water is when they got to Rephidim, as recorded in Exodus 17:1–3:
1 The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?” 3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
This grumbling of the Israelites is indeed uncalled for since they had seen how the Lord provided them water when they were in the desert of Shur. However, as we stated, because they have grown accustomed to complaining, they grumbled instead of simply telling Moses to pray to the Lord to provide them water. Their wrong attitude is reflected in their question of Exodus 17:3 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” I am saying that instead of the question that implied they blamed Moses, they should have stated their needs in a tone that does not imply they were blaming him. It is because of their tone or approach that they were charged of being guilty of grumbling.
The second record of grumbling of the Israelites of the exodus generation involves food. The situation with them seemed to be that they ate for some time the food they brought out of Egypt as we may gather from the information given in Exodus 12:39:
With the dough they had brought from Egypt, they baked cakes of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.
So, once they ran out of food they began to grumble against Moses for lack of food, as recorded in Exodus 16:1–3:
1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
It is interesting that because of lack of food that the Israelites preferred to be enslaved than suffer lack of food. They forgot their groanings because of slavery simply because they have encountered a problem of lack of food. That notwithstanding, God graciously provided them food as we read in Exodus 16:4–5:
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
The third record of grumbling of the Israelites of the exodus generation involves the report of the spies that Moses sent to gather information about the land of Canaan. Ten of the twelve spies Moses sent, gave a mixed report of the richness of the land for agricultural activities and how powerful the inhabitants were implying that they would be unable to occupy the land by defeating its inhabitants as we read in Numbers 13:27–29:
27 They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” 30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
The bad report Israel received from ten of the spies caused them to grumble against Moses and Aaron as we read in Numbers 14:1–4:
1 That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
The fourth record of grumbling of the Israelites of the exodus generation against Moses involved the death of those who rebelled against Moses’ authority under the leadership of Korah. The Lord killed the rebels. This led the Israelite community to grumble against Moses and Aaron as we read Numbers 16:41:
The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the LORD’s people,” they said.
Our consideration of the instances of Israel’s grumbling indicates that grumbling of the Israelites involved discontent complaining about every and anything, self-pity, not being satisfied with what God did for them despite His having demonstrated His power to them several times.
In any case, the grumbling of the Israelites against Moses and the Lord resulted in the death of some of them as we read in the last verbal phrase of 1 Corinthians 10:10 and were killed by the destroying angel. Literally, the Greek reads and were destroyed by the destroyer. The phrase the destroying angel of the NIV is interpretative although a good one. This is because we have a Greek noun (olothreutēs) that appears only here in the Greek NT that means “destroyer.” It is probably that when the apostle used the word that he was thinking of the concept portrayed in the OT Scripture where death or destruction was carried out by an angel that God sent for specific purpose of bringing death. In the night of Israel’s departure from Egypt, God sent an angel to kill all the firstborn of the Egyptians as we read in Exodus 12:23:
When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
When David ordered the ill-advised census, the Lord brought judgment on the inhabitants of Jerusalem that led to the death of seventy thousand people as recorded in 1 Chronicles 21:14:
So the LORD sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead.
This death was brought about by an angel that the Lord sent to carry out the judgment of death on these men as we read in 1 Chronicles 21:15:
And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the LORD was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
During the reign of Hezekiah, Sennacherib threatened to attack Jerusalem. However, the king sought God’s help so that the army of the Assyrians were decimated by the death of their soldiers. This death is brought by an angel that the Lord sent to destroy many of the Assyrian army as we read from 2 Chronicles 32:21:
And the LORD sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons cut him down with the sword.
When Herod took the glory that belongs to God, it was an angel that was sent to bring about his death as indicated in Acts 12:21–23:
21 On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22 They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” 23 Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
It is probably because of these examples that the standard Greek English Lexicon (BDAG) indicated that the destroyer in 1 Corinthians 10:10 refers to the destroying angel that carried out divine sentence of punishment. They suggest that perhaps the destroyer could refer to Satan. This is possible since it appears that God may give Satan power of death as we can learn from the restriction put on him by the Lord when he tested Job as we read in Job 2:6:
The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”
This truth is further supported by the assertion of Hebrews 2:14:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—
This aside, it seems that it is this interpretation of a destroying angel that is followed by the translator of the NIV.
Be that as it may, the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul indicates that those who grumbled against Moses and the Lord were destroyed or killed by the destroyer that is an angel in the verbal phrase of 1 Corinthians 10:10 and were killed by the destroying angel. The verbal phrase implies that it was probably the same destroying angel that was used in the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians that was used in carrying out the death punishment of those Israelites who died because of grumbling against Moses and the Lord. There were a few cases of death associated with grumbling against Moses or the Lord that were reported. The ten spies Moses sent to Canaan that gave the bad report that caused Israelites grumbling died as we read in Numbers 14:37–38:
37 these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD. 38 Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.
All those who grumbled against Moses because of the bad report eventually died in the desert as God’s punishment on them as we read in Numbers 14:26–35:
26 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: 27 “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. 28 So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: 29 In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. 30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. 31 As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. 32 But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. 33 Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. 34 For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ 35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”
Those who murmured against Moses when the rebels died also were punished by death, according to Numbers 16:49:
But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.
As we have stated the Holy Spirit tells us through the apostle that a destroying angel was responsible for the death of all who grumbled against Moses. As we indicated previously, it is possible that the destroying angel was the same one that killed the firstborn of the Egyptians. The fate of these grumbles should warn us to be careful about grumbling against each other as per the command of James 5:9:
Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
Therefore, you should be careful that you are not in the habit of complaining because you are discontent with every and anything. Be careful that you do not forget God’s goodness towards you to cause you to become dissatisfied because you encounter some difficulties in life. Furthermore, you should endeavor not to be one of those that have the attitude that no one is correct but you so that you find yourself complaining bitterly about your spiritual leaders. Remember the message we have been considering is that Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him.
06/25//21