Numbers 11:1-15, “Please Kill Me Here and Now”

Three great men of God told God they were ready to die: Elijah, Jeremiah and Moses.  In each situation, God met them in a particular way, and the LORD did not kill them.  Today’s passage is the story of Moses.

In Moses’ case, we have written in the past that the story of the Exodus and the wilderness wanderings is not only about Israel’s development into a nation; it is also a story about Moses’ development into a true shepherd-leader of Israel.  A “shepherd-leader” is not just someone who makes decisions and gives commands; he is someone who bears the burden of the flock God has called him to lead. 

We see Moses at the “end of his rope” in this calling he has from the LORD: If you treat me like this, please kill me here and now – if I have found favor in Your sight – and do not let me see my wretchedness (11:15).  What is Moses’ “wretchedness.”  The word (Heb. ra) is an important term in Scripture, used 666 times.  It is first use is in the Garden of Eden, referring to the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  In this form (feminine noun) it refers to evil, misery, distress, injury. 

What is it that Moses fears?  Is Moses afraid that he will commit a sin in leadership if the LORD does not intervene?  After all, many years earlier, in an attempt to lead his people, he had in anger killed to Egyptians.  This had resulted in his fleeing from Pharaoh and the assumption that he would never be the deliverer he was born to be.  In the more recent “golden calf” incident, he had in anger broken the tablets of the law written by the finger of God.  Is Moses afraid he will disqualify himself with God by losing his temper?  This, in fact, did happen later when he struck the rock in anger rather than speaking to the rock (Num. 20:1-13).

But the Hebrew term refers not just to the sin but to the consequences of the sin (misery, distress, injury).  Moses had just seen another evidence of God’s judgment on his flock (11:1-3).  In his words to the LORD Moses’ concern is “the burden of all these people on me” (11:11).  He reminds the LORD that He, the LORD, laid the care of the people on him, Moses (11:12-13).  They were crying out for meat and Moses felt the responsibility to provide for them.  He says, “the burden is too heavy for me” (11:14).  What he fears is seeing God’s judgment and the death of many more members of the flock he has come to care for. 

From the human point of view, what options did Moses have?  He could not leave the flock and take on another flock somewhere and become their shepherd.  That is never the way it works.  Moses is correct, speaking of the LORD, “You have laid the burden of all these people on me” (11:11).  He can only plead with the LORD, kill me here and now!

You can read the rest of the chapter to see how this story ends.  I want to take you to Hebrews.  Jesus is better than Moses.  Both were faithful in their house (Heb. 3:5-6).  But of Jesus we read: He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (4:15).  This is our Shepherd.  He bore the burden of His flock to the cross.  The burden on Moses led him to ask God to remove him but God would not.  The burden on Jesus led Him to submit to God’s will, which was to die, to give His life for the sheep.  How we praise God for His Son, our Savior, our Shepherd.