“The Lord was angry with me because of you,” said Moses, “and he vowed that I should not cross the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving for your possession” (Deuteronomy 4:21).

It might be just a lament, rather than a scold. If we were present, we would know by the tone of Moses’ voice: a lament sounds different from a scold. Certainly there were times when Moses’ heart was heavy, so it would make sense as a lament. Yet the way Moses seems so insistent on blaming them makes it seem more like a scold.

It was at Meribah that God told Moses that he would not be able to enter the promised land. The people had complained about the lack of water in the desert. God told Moses to command the rock to bring forth water. Moses took his staff and struck the rock twice, and the water came gushing out. Yahweh then told Moses that because of his lack of faith, he would not get to enter the promised land (Numbers 20:2-12). What was it that Moses did wrong? Was it that he struck the rock instead of commanding it? Or was it the way he suggested that he and Aaron would provide the water, instead of saying that God would do it? Or was it quiet doubts in his heart? We’d like to know these details, but the text of Numbers does not offer them.

Now, all these years later, Moses told the Israelites how he had pleaded with the Lord to relent and let him cross over and see the land of Canaan (Deuteronomy 3:24-25). “But the Lord was angry with me on your account,” he told them, “and would not heed me” (3:26). We can see here that Moses had a hard time simply accepting God’s verdict: the Lord had said it was for Moses’ lack of faith, but in his soul Moses kept blaming it on the stubbornness of the Israelites, as the root cause of his failure. It’s hard to accept responsibility. It’s easier to figure out how to blame somebody else.

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Help us, O Lord! We are so resistant to acknowledging our own fault. There’s always enough blame to go around, and we are quick to point out that some of the blame should stick to somebody else. Yet grant us the grace simply to acknowledge our faults in humble contrition, trusting that even if we don’t see Canaan in this life, we still belong to you forever.

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