glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the
wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not
hearkened to my voice," etc., Num 14, 22. It was in the second year
after the departure from Egypt that the Jews murmured about the
water, and now in the fortieth year, when they should have been
humbled after so long experience, and when they whose lives covered
that period ought to have been conscious of the wonderful
deliverances they had experienced in not being destroyed with others
of their number, but being brought safely to the promised land--now
they begin anew to complain with great impatience and bitterness:
"Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?"
Or, in other words: "You often remind us you represent God's command,
and you have promised us great things. This is a fine way you take to
lead us into the land when here we have yet farther to journey and
are all going to die in the wilderness!"

21. Notice, Paul in speaking of how they tempted God says, "They
tempted Christ," pointing to the fact that the eternal Son of God was
from the beginning with his Church and with the people who received
from the ancient fathers the promise of his coming in the form of
man. They believed as we do that Christ--to use Paul's words in the
beginning--was the rock that followed them.

Therefore the apostle gives us to understand, the point of the
Israelites' insult was directed against faith in Christ, against the
promise concerning him. Moses was compelled to hear them protest
after this manner: "Yes, you boast about a Messiah who is one with
God, and who is with us to lead us; one revealed to the fathers and
promised to be born unto us of our flesh and blood, to redeem us and
bring relief to all men; a Messiah who for that reason adopts us for
his own people, to bring us into the land; but where is he? This is a
fine way he relieves us! Is our God one to permit us to wander for
forty years in the wilderness until we all perish?"

22. That such sin and blasphemy was the real meaning of their
murmurings is indicated by the fact that Moses afterward, in the
terrible punishment of the fiery serpents by which the people were
bitten and died, erected at God's command a brazen serpent and
whoever looked upon it lived. It was to them a sign of Christ who was
to be offered for the salvation of sinners. It taught the people they
had blasphemed against God, incurred his wrath and deserved