A new rebellion breaks out, this time from those closest to Moses. Moses does not cling to power, but the exodus from Egypt is his calling, his mission, and his responsibility. It is no accident that the Lord so protects Moses' authority: these events, and the very arguments of Aaron and Miriam, "We know the Lord no worse than he does," strongly recall the Gospel events when even those close to the Lord Jesus, and then many others centuries later, did not want to receive Him, leaving the Savior "without honor in His own country."

The Lord really does speak with each of us: through the voice of conscience, through intuition, inner feelings, or external circumstances. But is that a reason to declare, "We ourselves know God no worse than He does"? Reasoning this way, we risk not hearing the most important thing and not meeting the One who will truly reveal God to us.

The story in the passage about the accusations against Moses may look like a fairly typical example of God's punishment. Indeed: here are baseless accusations, here is God, here is leprosy - everything is present, everything is logical, simple, and clear. In reality, however, things are not quite as we usually picture them. Or even not at all. The whole question is where we look from and how we build the logic of the picture being revealed. Looking from the side, one sees only a linear sequence of events: reproach - Tabernacle - leprosy - repentance.

The pattern looks extremely simple, the very one commentators usually draw: an unjust reproach, an appeal to God, God's judgment and God's punishment, followed by the repentance of those who sinned. Yet when viewed from the Tabernacle, from the place of God's presence, everything becomes completely different. First of all, the linear sequence of events on which most commentaries on this passage are based disappears. With God there is no "before" and "after," at least not in our sense. For Him there are relationships with specific people in the full dynamism of a specific moment. Simply put, for God in His relationship with each person there is only that "here and now" which exists in the fullness of the times of His Kingdom, while for a person there is only the "here and now" of a specific moment, that very "instant between past and future." The main question in evaluating any situation becomes the question of how the "here and now" of an individual person relates to the "here and now" of God's fullness of time.

The development of events in any situation, including the one described in the passage, is determined by this dynamic relation between God's "here and now" and the human one. An accusation, especially an unjust and baseless one, always knocks a person out of the fullness of God's "here and now" - and then that person's life ceases to be the fullness of reality that is "only an instant between past and future."

The instant becomes blurred, and with it the fullness of life is blurred, the fullness that can exist only as an instant. Then anything becomes possible, including not only illness but even death - all the more so directly in God's presence. Repentance, if it is genuine, returns life to the present instant and relates it to the fullness of God's eternal present - and then the illness passes, vanishes without a trace. God wants no one's death; He wants fullness of life for everyone. The rest depends only on the person.

The people closest to Moses are unable to resist envy and the desire to judge. It always seems to us that, whoever else we may fail to love, we certainly love the person closest to us. But if behind this there stand only our feelings, and not the recognition of this person's preciousness apart from us, then all of it is very unstable. By creating a person and choosing him, God gives him such preciousness; therefore only on the basis of faith in God, or in Something higher than ourselves, can we draw near to such love.