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It was the sin of one occupying a high official position. You know how in armies a sentinel who sleeps on the post is shot, because great matters are weighed in the balance, great interests are at stake. Why, the ancients used to have a plan of taking a builder, and if his building crumbled and fell, they would take away the ruins and bury him there, and let the next builder put the building up upon him. They held him accountable. Persons that are in positions of authority and of office are held severely to account. Just the same way with a policeman, whose duty it is to see that the law is observed; if he violates the law, he is held to sharpest account. And so we have Moses, the great law-giver. There was an appropriateness in the fact that the great law-giver should himself be held to sharpest and closest account when he himself violated the law of God.

(E. Judson, D.D.)

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KJV: They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes:

WEB: They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, so that Moses was troubled for their sakes;