NOTES for Num 20:1-29
The episode at Meribah is remarkable because it is precisely because of it that Moses is finally deprived of the chance to enter the promised land. A natural question arises: for what? There had been plenty of such or similar episodes on the way from Sinai to the borders of the land God had promised. What makes this one stand out? Outwardly, only one phrase, one question Moses addresses to the crowd: must we bring water out of this rock for you? But God says: because you did not believe Me, you will not bring the people into the land. The emphasis is on precisely this: you will not bring the people in. The fact that you yourselves will not enter is only a consequence. What is the matter, then? What does it mean to manifest God's holiness? How is that even possible for a human being?
Of course, a person cannot be a bearer of God's holiness in and of himself. He can only be a mirror that reflects that holiness, a mirror more or less clean. To reflect God's holiness, humility is needed. Not humility in the sense in which we often understand it today, or in the fatalistic sense in which we regard absolutely everything happening around us as God's will, but in the true, original sense, where humility means the complete surrender of oneself to God's will.
In that case, the person must disappear, as it were, and become completely unnoticeable against the background of God's presence and God's action, so that everything that happens is attributed only to God and to no one else. Then God's holiness will appear in the fullest measure possible for the human being who reflects it. The less sharply a person stands out against the background of God's presence and God's holiness, the more noticeable God's presence becomes, and the more clearly His action is seen.
This was especially important for the people who were looking at Moses and at everything that was happening. They were already ready to see Moses as a leader from whom they expected miracles. But God needed to raise up His own people, not Moses's, Aaron's, or anyone else's. Any human "I" that stands out too sharply, even against the background of God's holiness, interfered with that task. The presence of such a prominent leader as Moses became undesirable in light of the task of educating God's people, and once he had done his work, he had to depart - which is what God tells him directly, as His servant.