Numbers 20:7 Meaning Yahweh Spoke to Moses

A voice addresses the man who has learned to answer it, and that capacity to be addressed is itself the mark of maturity. The child leans on his father and mother for the pattern of what to do. The adult leans on something higher, on the order that speaks through conscience and calling, and takes the weight of decision onto himself. Moses has made that transfer of dependency, and so instruction can reach him at all.

Leadership arrives braided with temptation. The very responsibility that lifts a man above the crowd hands him power, and power tempts even the greatest to seize what should be received. A man who is spoken to is thereby put on trial. He must act on what he hears without twisting it toward his own aggrandizement. Hearing the command is only the beginning of carrying it.