This is a grand lesson for the wilderness. We cannot get on without it. Had Moses fully understood it, he never would have given utterance to such words as these: “Whence should _I_ have flesh to give unto all this people?” He would have fixed his eye _only_ upon God. He would have known that he was but an instrument in the hands of God, whose resources were illimitable. Assuredly, Moses could not supply that vast assembly with food even for a single day; but Jehovah could supply the need of every living thing, and supply it forever. Do we really believe this? Does it not sometimes appear as though we doubted it? Do we not sometimes feel as though _we_ were to supply instead of God? and then is it any marvel if we quail and falter and sink? Well indeed might Moses say, “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.” There was only one heart that could bear with such a company, namely, the heart of that blessed One who, when they were toiling amid the brick-kilns of Egypt, had come down to deliver them, and who, having redeemed them out of the hand of the enemy, had taken up His abode in their midst. He was able to bear them, and He alone. His loving heart and mighty hand were alone adequate to the task; and if Moses had been in the full power of this great truth, he would not and could not have said, “If Thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray Thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in Thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.” This surely was a dark moment in the history of this illustrious servant of God. It reminds us somewhat of the prophet Elijah, when he flung himself at the base of the juniper tree and entreated the Lord to take away his life. How wonderful to see those two men together on the mount of transfiguration! It proves, in a very marked way, that God’s thoughts are not as ours, nor His ways as ours. He had something better in store for Moses and Elias than aught that they contemplated. Blessed be His name, He rebukes our fears by the riches of His grace, and when our poor hearts would anticipate death and wretchedness, He gives life, victory, and glory. However, we cannot but see that, in shrinking from a position of weighty responsibility, Moses was really giving up a place of high dignity and holy privilege. This seems most evident from the following passage: “And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Gather unto Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, _that they may stand there with thee_. And I will come down and talk with thee there; and _I will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them_; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.’” (Ver. 16, 17.)