The Leader and the Led: When Corporate Sin Comes Home Text: Psalm 106:32-33
Introduction: The Contagion of Unbelief
Psalm 106 is a long, hard look in the rearview mirror. It is a national confession of sin, a litany of Israel's faithlessness from Egypt to the Promised Land. And we modern, individualistic Christians need to pay close attention to this sort of thing. We tend to think of our sins as intensely private affairs, little transactions between "me and Jesus." But the Bible knows nothing of this isolated piety. We are covenantally bound together. We are a people. And the sins of a people have a corporate reality, a spiritual momentum that can sweep even the best of men along with it.
This psalm is a history lesson, but not the kind you get in a secular textbook. It is not a story of economic forces or political maneuvering. It is the story of God's steadfast love clashing, again and again, with Israel's stiff-necked rebellion. And in the middle of this recital of idolatry and grumbling, we come to a deeply personal and tragic event. It is the story of how the sin of the people finally infected their leader, Moses. It is a stark reminder that leaders are not immune to the spiritual climate of those they lead. In fact, they are often the ones who bear the consequences most acutely.
The incident at Meribah is a cautionary tale for every pastor, every father, every magistrate. It demonstrates a profound biblical principle that our modern world despises: the principle of federal responsibility. We are tied together. The sin of the flock can become the snare of the shepherd. The unbelief of the nation can bring judgment upon the head of state, not because he is solely to blame, but because he is responsible. This is a hard truth, but it is a necessary one if we are to understand how God governs the world, and how He holds leaders accountable.
The Text
They also provoked Him to wrath at the waters of Meribah,
So that it went badly with Moses on their account;
Because they were rebellious against His Spirit,
He spoke rashly with his lips.
(Psalm 106:32-33 LSB)
Corporate Provocation, Federal Consequences (v. 32)
We begin with the scene of the crime and the assignment of responsibility.
"They also provoked Him to wrath at the waters of Meribah, So that it went badly with Moses on their account." (Psalm 106:32)
The first clause is straightforward. "They," the congregation of Israel, provoked God to wrath. The place was Meribah, which means "strife" or "quarreling." You can read the full account in Numbers 20. The people are thirsty, and they do what they always do. They grumble, they complain, they lodge a formal indictment against Moses and, by extension, against God. "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" (Numbers 20:4). This is not a polite request for water. This is a bitter, faithless accusation. After all the miracles, after the Red Sea, after the manna, their default setting is still unbelief.
But notice the second clause. The consequence of their provocation is that "it went badly with Moses." And the text is painstakingly clear about the reason: it was "on their account." The Hebrew is emphatic. It was because of them, for their sakes, on account of their actions. This is where our modern sensibilities get snagged. We want a clean, one-to-one correspondence. If Moses sinned, he should be punished for his sin. If the people sinned, they should be punished for theirs. But that is not how a covenant works. God has established lines of representation in the world.
This is the principle of federal headship. A father represents his family. A pastor represents his church. A king represents his nation. And Moses was the head of Israel. This does not mean that Moses was not guilty of his own sin, as the next verse will show. He was. But we cannot understand his sin in isolation. The pressure of the people's incessant rebellion, their constant chafing against God's authority, created the conditions for his fall. He was the lightning rod, and the accumulated charge of the people's sin finally struck through him.
Think of it this way. A husband is responsible for the state of his marriage. This does not mean he is guilty of every sin his wife commits. Guilt attaches to the one who commits the act. But responsibility attaches to the head. Authority and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. Moses had the authority from God, and so he also bore the responsibility. When the nation sinned, the consequences landed squarely on him. It went ill with him, for their sakes. This is a terrifying and sobering reality for anyone in a position of leadership. You cannot lead a rebellious people and expect to remain untouched by their rebellion.
The Spirit Grieved, The Lips Loosed (v. 33)
Now the psalmist drills down into the specific mechanism of the fall.
"Because they were rebellious against His Spirit, He spoke rashly with his lips." (Psalm 106:33)
The first phrase, "Because they were rebellious against His Spirit," is crucial. The antecedent of "they" is the people. The people rebelled. But whose spirit did they rebel against? The construction can be read as them rebelling against God's Spirit, which is certainly true. Their grumbling was a grief to the Holy Spirit. But given the context, it is more likely referring to the effect their rebellion had on Moses' spirit. Their contentiousness embittered his spirit. They vexed him, wore him down, and provoked him past his breaking point.
And what was the result? "He spoke rashly with his lips." The "He" here is Moses. The rebellion of the people provoked the spirit of the leader, and the leader snapped. He spoke unadvisedly, foolishly. If we turn back to Numbers 20, we see exactly what he said. God had told him, "Speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water" (Num. 20:8). A simple command. But what did Moses do? He gathered the people and raged at them. "Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" (Num. 20:10). And then he struck the rock twice with his staff.
What was so bad about this? First, the tone. "You rebels." He takes on the tone of an exasperated parent who has lost his temper. But more than that, look at the pronoun. "Shall we bring forth water?" Who is the "we"? Moses and Aaron? Or, more arrogantly, Moses and God, as though they were partners in the enterprise? In his anger, Moses put himself in the place of God. He obscured the very thing he was called to reveal: the holiness and mercy of God. God wanted to show that His word alone was sufficient. Just speak, and the rock will obey. But Moses, in his fury, made it about his own power and frustration. He struck the rock, a picture of Christ, not once but twice. He misrepresented God before the people.
God's verdict was swift and severe. "Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them" (Num. 20:12). The sin was unbelief that manifested itself in a failure to sanctify God's name. And it was triggered by the people's rebellion. Their sin became his sin. He was guilty, yes. But it went ill with him on their account.
Conclusion: The Better Moses
This is a hard passage. We see a great and faithful servant, the meekest man on earth, disqualified at the one-yard line. After forty years of bearing the burden of this faithless people, he finally stumbles, and the cost is immense. It teaches us about the holiness of God, who will not be misrepresented. It teaches us about the seriousness of leadership, and the weight of federal responsibility.
But this story, like all Old Testament stories, is meant to make us look up and see our need for a better representative, a better federal head. Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant, but he was a sinful mediator. He was a faithful shepherd, but he was a fallible shepherd. The rebellion of the sheep finally got to him.
But we have a better Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ. He too was surrounded by a faithless and rebellious people. He too was provoked and tested at every turn. They grumbled against Him, they questioned His authority, they accused Him of being in league with Satan. He bore the full, concentrated rebellion of His people. And yet, He never spoke rashly. "When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He uttered no threats" (1 Peter 2:23).
Unlike Moses, who struck the rock in anger, Jesus was the Rock who was struck for us in love. And when He was struck, He did not cry out "You rebels!" but rather, "Father, forgive them." It went ill with Jesus on our account. He bore the consequences of our rebellion. He took the wrath we provoked. He was disqualified, cut off from the land of the living, so that we, the true rebels, could be brought into the promised land of God's presence.
Moses, in the end, was a man who fell because of the sins of his people. Jesus is the God-man who stood fast in the face of the sins of His people, and then took those sins upon Himself and carried them to the cross. Moses' failure reminds us that even the best of human leaders will eventually disappoint. But Christ's perfection is the rock upon which we can build our lives, our families, and our churches, secure in the knowledge that our great High Priest can never fail.