What Have You Done to Us?
Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt?” Exodus 14:11 NASB
To die in the wilderness – I wish I’d never started. It was so easy to just go along with whatever I was told to believe. People liked me. I didn’t have to prove anything. We all agreed. I knew what faith was, and I could sign the “Statement” without qualms. But now look at me. I’m somewhere in the wilderness. I don’t even know where. Someplace where things are uncertain, where scary thoughts run around like monsters in the dark, where I just don’t know what to believe, or if I even believe anything at all anymore. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to that other life. At least I was accepted there. No one challenged me to think about these things. It was, umm, well, “comfortable,” in an odd sort of way. You know, passive. I didn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary. Just get along. But out here . . . out here I have to work at this every day . . . out here there really isn’t any R&R . . . out here I could die before I know.
“Why did You make it so impossible to just go back?”
I’m pretty sure that if I were in the mass that left Egypt, I’d also be in the mass complaining about it. It’s not that the grass isn’t greener on the other side. It might be, but what good is that now? Now it’s just the desert grit in my teeth every morning. “Slavery wasn’t as bad as this,” I tell myself. Oh, it was hard. It was painful. Actually, it was terrible . . . but, when I was a slave I knew what I had to do . . . and I knew what I was going to be doing tomorrow. Life had a monotonous certainty. That’s what I miss. No one asks a slave what he thinks. He just does the next thing, the same thing, over and over. It’s better that way. No more doubting what I used to believe.
If we read the story of the wandering in the wilderness as historical records, we’ll miss the point entirely. The story is about the transition of psychological reality, not desert footpaths. The story is about regret, denial, helplessness, anxiety, discouragement, depression, anger, and shame. The story is about the internal desert wilderness in each of us, that place where we aren’t able to feel that God really cares . . . that we can trust Him! Sometimes it’s forty years of wandering. Sometimes it’s forty minutes. Just depends on the depth of our anxiety, the weight of our trauma, the power of those self-numbing behaviors. God knows all this, so He makes it difficult . . . to go back.
“The first intimation of this wilderness pattern arises in the mind of God. It is God who first foresees the likelihood of such a desire arising; in view of this, He makes actual return more complicated, to prevent the people from acting on their midbar thoughts. These thoughts are indicated by the expression yinachem—‘The people will change their minds’ (Exodus 13:17). The changeable human mind is set in sharp focus in Rashi’s translation: the core idea of nechamah(usually translated as either ‘comfort’ or ‘relief’) is machshavah acheret—‘another thought.’ What God knows about the people is that their thought of Exodus will be rethought as regression. And indeed, it does not take long for the people to cry out: ‘What is this you have done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?’ (14:11).”[1]
Topical Index: wilderness, die, blame, Exodus 14:11
[1] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, p. xviii.
PUBLICATION NOTE: If you haven’t listened to all the study series on Zornberg’s book on Numbers, then you’re really missing out on some incredible insights. You can purchase the entire series HERE if you weren’t a participant in the weekly study.
