I am part of a Bible study that has been going through the Old Testament Book of First Samuel.  Going into chapter four we explored the question, “what does it mean to tempt the Lord?”  In the Gospel of Luke Jesus is tempted by Satan when Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you’ and ‘on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. (Luk 4:9-11).’”  Jesus’ response is to quote Deuteronomy 6:16 when he says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (Luk 4:12)” reinforcing the accepted injunction against testing the Lord.

But this question came up in our study, “How do you square that with the words of Malachi, ‘Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need (Mal 3:10).’”  It appears here that God is asking to be tempted.  Is it a trap?

Looking back at the full quote of Deuteronomy Jesus left of a piece that His audience would have been fully aware of that we would miss.  In Deuteronomy the quote reads, “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah (Deu 6:16).”  To understand Jesus’ full meaning, we would have to know what happened at Massah.

As the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, they came to an uninhabited place in which there was no water.  “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst (Exo 17:3)?”  They argued with Moses and demanded water.  But Moses had not brought them into the wilderness, God had brought them into the wilderness.  They weren’t testing Moses; they were testing God (Exo 17:2).

Adam Clarke captures this testing best when he paraphrases Moses.  “God is your leader, complain to him; Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? As he is your leader, all your murmurings against me he considers as directed against himself; why therefore do ye tempt him? Has he not given you sufficient proofs that he can destroy his enemies and support his friends? And is he not among you to do you good?  Why therefore do ye doubt his power and goodness, and thus provoke him to treat you as his enemies (Clarke 1810-1826, 386)?”  But I think Clarke does miss one crucial point.

Sarah and I are crib training our daughter.  It’s not as easy as I had suspected.  I thought we would get Adelynn used to her crib and as we go through our bedtime routine she would ultimately end in the crib.  When she cried, we would simply wait until she fell asleep.  According to the internet it should only take fifteen to twenty minutes.  The problem is that for my wife those fifteen to twenty minutes are an eternity in which her daughter is being neglected.  According to my wife, there is magnetic pull that requires every ounce of strength to resist the urge to go to her.

I googled and it turns out she is not alone.  I watched super nanny coach more than a dozen moms through the same struggle.  In one case the child cried, “Mommy… I’m dying… mommy… I’m dying.”  I watched on that video as this child’s mother fought the urge in full knowledge that her child was not dying.  Even the child knew that he was not dying.  But the child wanted mommy to do what the child wanted mommy to do and here is the crux of what it means to tempt the Lord.  Here is the piece that Clark missed.

Not only were the people of Israel not dying of thirst they had already seen God work in miraculous way after miraculous way in the best interest of the Israelites.  They were not waiting on the Lord in a relationship of trust.  They wanted water and they wanted it right now.  In essence they were crying, “Daddy… I’m dying… daddy… I’m dying.”  God had no intention of neglecting His children through the wilderness any more than my wife and I intend to neglect our child through the night.  To test the lord is to try and force him to do what you want.  Isn’t this what Satan was asking of Jesus in the gospel of Luke?

“In saying to the people, “Why do you put the LORD to the test,” Moses showed that he knew that the protest represented an attempt to manipulate God… ‘Testing God’ is demanding or expecting him to do something special for you. (Douglas 2006, 389).”  I once had a roommate whose entire family had given up on God because God had failed to heal their illnesses and provide financially despite their prayers.  This proved, for him, that God was not real.  I think that this might be testing God as the Israelites had tested God at Massah.

So how are we to test God?  If God asked the Israelites to test Him, what would it look like to rightly test God?  Don’t forget to check back next week.  I think I might like to put a little more thought into this question.

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Clarke, Adam. Adam Clarke’s Commentary On The Bible. Public Domain, 1810-1826.

Douglas, Stuard K. “Exodus.” In The New American Commentary. Nasville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006.