DESIRE GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE

The direct Hebrew translation of the word “burden” means an utterance, tribute, prophecy, a song, a bearer up, and mentally it means a desire. The burden bearer is the one who takes up the standard, to lift up Christ and to desire God above everything else.

As Moses experienced God and became aware of God’s desire for a people to be separated unto Him, God’s word in him created the burden. Moses was raised up by God to lead the people from slavery into freedom. It was for this reason that God formed Moses’ identity in the house of Pharaoh and because of that identity, God could use him in time. The impartation of God’s Spirit into Moses is what allowed God to speak as friend to him. “So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend…” (Exodus 33:11)

The complaining continued and the burden grew in Moses. “Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was greatly aroused; Moses also was displeased.” (Numbers 11:10) Remember that Moses knew the anger of the Lord, but he was also the mediator for the people and knew that God desired this nation to survive. In anguish of the situation, he cried out to God. “So Moses said to the LORD, ‘Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,’ to the land which You swore to their fathers?’ … ‘I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You treat me this, please kill me here and now – if I have found favor in Your sight - and do not let me see my wretchedness!” (Numbers 11:11-12, 14-15)

For Moses, it seemed like God had abandoned him. Moses was crying out to God because of his love of Jehovah and now, it seemed God was the adversary. The torment of desire within Moses to satisfy God caused him to want to rather die, than to be unable to please Him. God knew that Moses’ desire was His desire and that the greatness of this desire could be imparted to others. If the burden could be imparted to others, perhaps it would also separate others unto God.

“So the LORD said to Moses: ‘Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone… Then the LORD came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again.” (Numbers 11:16, 17 and 25)

Something was happening in the camp of the Israelites. Now, at least, the spirit that was upon Moses was multiplied in the people. At least, the burden was causing a separation upon the elders, as the spirit fell upon them, to prophesy. As the Spirit was multiplied, it served two purposes:

1. The multiplication upon the seventy represented a sharing in the responsibility of the word of the Lord, and in this case, the judgment. I can imagine that the elders prophesied the coming judgment because it was the word of the Lord at the time. Their number represented a completion of the work of the Spirit in the people.

2. The multiplication of the spirit eased the burden of the judgment on Moses. I believed that had Moses carried this burden alone, the weight of the impact of that judgment upon him would have killed him. He was in unity with God and His desire for Israel as a nation, and the death of Israel would also have been his death.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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