if only the type had
been less woefully imperfect--if Israel had been trustful as Moses was,
and the crude material had not marred the design.

It would be more practical and edifying to reflect how often we
ourselves, like Israel, might have learned and exemplified deep things
of the grace of God, when all we really exhibited was the well-worn
lesson of human frailty and divine forbearance.

In the story of our Lord, it has been observed that before the Pharisees
directly assailed Himself, they found fault with His disciples who
fasted not, or accosted them concerning Him Who ate with sinners. And so
here the people really tempted God, but openly "strove with Moses," and
with Aaron too, for the verb is a plural one: "Give _ye_ water" (ver.
2).

But as Aaron is merely an agent and spokesman, the chief value of this
tacit allusion to him, besides proving his fidelity, is to refute the
notion that he sinks into comparative obscurity only after the sin of
the golden calf. Already his position is one to be indicated rather than
expressed; and Moses said, "Why do ye quarrel with me? wherefore do ye
try the Lord?"

But the frenzy rose higher: it was he, and not a higher One, who had
brought them out of Egypt; the upshot of it would only be "to kill us,
and our children, and our cattle, with thirst."

Look closely at this expression, and a curious significance discloses
itself. Was it mere covetousness, the spirit of the Jew Shylock
lamenting in one breath his daughter and his ducats, which introduced
the cattle along with the children into this complaint of dying men?
Shylock himself, when death actually looked him in the face, readily
sacrificed his fortune. Nor is it credible that a large number of
people, really believing that a horrible death was imminent, would have
spent any complaints upon their property. The language is exactly that
of angry exaggeration. They have come through straits quite as
desperate, and they know it well. It is not the fear of death, but the
painful delay of rescue, the discomfort and misery of their condition in
the meanwhile, the contrast between their sufferings and their own
conception of the rights of the favourites of heaven, which is audible
in this complaint. And thus their "Trial" and "Quarrel" are admirably
epitomised in the phrase "Is Jehovah among us or not?" a phrase which
has often since been in the heart, if not upon the lips, of men who had
supposed the life divine to be on