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There’s no sacrifice that humans can offer to fix human rebellion. This assertion shows up in Numbers 15:30, where Yahweh declares that no one—whether native Israelite or foreigner who’s living among the Hebrews—who does anything high-handed rebellion will be permitted to continue living among the Israelites.

Overtures of that stipulation are already apparent throughout the guilt offering sections of Leviticus (4:1–6:7). Repeatedly, the author uses the word “accidentally” or “in error” (Hebrew b’shagag). Each instance of sacrifice for violating Yahweh’s laws or expectations assumes it was done by accident. There is no sacrifice outlined in Leviticus that covers a violation done on purpose. In a way, the text assumes that the people who live in high-handed rebellion will receive the same consequences the people at the Golden Calf did.

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The restoration of Eden imperfectly. We must be careful here not to assume that the fragility of the sacrificial system was an intentional design choice on Yahweh’s part—that he purposefully set up an incomplete or overly ritualistic method of mediating relationship in order to show its deficiency. At no point in the text does the author state whether explicitly or implicitly that the sacrificial system was deficient. It was completely efficacious for Israel and for those living in Israel’s borders. Yahweh was content with the system as well.

It would be incorrect to read either Paul’s thoughts on the “law” or Hebrews’ monologue about the old systems and assume that, for Israel at the time of Leviticus, the cult rituals were worthless. Doing so would turn the entirety of the Old Testament cultic and legal system into a glorified MacGuffin; it’s necessary so Jesus’s sacrifice makes sense, but utterly worthless for anything else. On the efficacy of the Sinaitic law, see Daniel Block, The Triumph of Grace: Literary and Theological Studies in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Themes (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2017), 82ff. See also Block, Covenant, 195–204.

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The failure of Moses to perfectly obey and enter Canaan. Moses’s failure in Numbers 20:2–13 is a tiny little piece of the overall narrative. Yahweh’s treatment of Moses seems harsh on the surface, especially given all that they’ve been through together. He told Moses to speak to the rock to bring water out of it, but Moses instead chooses to strike the rock—not once, but twice. Water still comes out, but Yahweh accuses Moses and Aaron of lack of trust and condemns them to die in the wilderness.

It seems odd that Yahweh would make such a deal of a seemingly small thing, but the writer of Numbers is hearkening back to something established in Exodus. In his initial conversation with Yahweh on Horeb, Moses’s staff becomes something of a divine tool. It’s the means by which he will demonstrate his commission to the Hebrew elders (Exod. 4:1–5) and it gains the moniker “staff of God” as a result (v. 20). The staff is the symbol of Moses’s position as avatar of Yahweh and it’s the means by which Moses does the work of Yahweh. But at every juncture, Yahweh tells Moses (and Aaron) what to do with the staff. It acts as the conduit of Yahweh’s power because Yahweh makes it so.

However, in Numbers 20, Moses takes it upon himself to use the staff without the express instruction from Yahweh. He uses the staff of God to give the people what they want, and he does it in his own way. As a result, he usurps the power and position of Yahweh himself—no longer the avatar, but an (perhaps unintentional) attempt at usurping Yahweh’s throne. Now, Moses will later attribute his misdeed to pent-up frustration with Israel’s whining (Deut. 3:26), but the effect is still the same—humans cannot take Yahweh’s power and hope to wield it without his permission.