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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Numbers 16:15 - 16:15
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15.And Moses was very wroth. Although it might be, that there was something of human passion here, still zeal for God was supreme in his mind, nor did intemperate feelings, if he was at all tempted by them, prevail. Assuredly, it appears probable, from the context, that he was inflamed with holy ardor; since he executes the vengeance of God, as His lawful minister, so that it is plain he neither spoke nor did anything but at the dictation of the Spirit. Nay, we shall soon see that, although he was anxious with regard to the public safety, he required that but a few offenders should be punished, and not that the multitude should perish. Nor does his anger burst forth into revilings: as those, who are carried away by excess, usually assail the enemies by whom they are injured, with their tongue as well as their hands: but he betakes himself to God; nor does he ask more than flint they may be brought to shame in their pride. This is, indeed, expounded generally, by many, as if Moses desired that God should have no mercy upon them; but inasmuch as the decision of the quarrel depended on the approbation or rejection by God of rite offering they were about to make, he does not seem to me to pray for more than that God, by refusing their polluted gift, should thus chastise their ambition. At the same time also he shows that his prayer springs from the confidence of a good conscience, when he dares to testify before God that he had injured no man. Now this was the extreme of integrity and disinterestedness, that, when the people owed everything to him, he had not taken even the value of a single ass as the reward of all his labors.