Thischaptergives a very graphic and instructive picture of a much larger scheme of journeying. The local names may mean nothing to us now, but the words “departed,” “removed,” “encamped,” have meanings that abide for ever. We are doing in our way, and according to the measure of our opportunity, exactly what Israel did in this chapter of hard names and places mostly now forgotten. Observe, this is a written account: “And Moses wrote their goings out.” The life is all written. It is not a sentiment spoken without consideration and forgotten without regret; it is a record--a detailed and critical writing, condescending to geography, locality, daily movement, position in society and in the world. It is, therefore, to be regarded as a story that has been proved, and that will bear to be written and re-written. The one perfect Biographer is God. Every life is written in the book that is kept in the secret place of the heavens. “All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Nothing is omitted. The writing is plain--so plain that the blind man may read the story which God has written for his perusal. Who would like to see the book? Who could not write a book about his brother that would please that brother? Without being false, it might be highly eulogistic and comforting. But who would like to see his life as sketched by the hand of God? “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.’ What a monotony there is in this thirty-third chapter! This will be evident to the eye. The reader sees but two words or three, and all the rest are difficult terms or polysyllables unrelated to his life. The terms are “departed,” “removed,” “went.” The language of actual life is a narrow language which may be learned in a very brief time. So with our daily life: we rise, we sit, we retire; we eat and drink, and bless one another in the name of God ; and go round the little circle until sometimes we say, “Can we not vary all that, and add to it some more vivid line? Has no friend of ours the power of flushing this pale monotony into some tint of blood?” Then we fall back into the old lines: we “depart” and “remove” and “pitch”; we “pitch” and “depart” and “remove”; we come and go and settle and return; until there comes almost unconsciously into the strain of our speech some expressive and mournful sigh. “Few and evil have been the days of Thy servant.” Yet, not to dwell too much upon this well-ascertained fact, we may regard the record of the journeys of Israel as showing somewhat of the variety of life. Here and there a new departure sets in, or some new circumstance brightens the history. For example, in the ninth verse we read: “And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim: and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees.” Sweet entry is that! It occurs in our own secret diaries. Do we not dwell with thankfulness upon the places where we find the waters, the wells, the running streams, the beautiful trees, and the trees beautiful with luscious fruitage? Then comes the fourteenth verse: “And they encamped at Rephidim,” &c. Such are the changes in life. We have passed through precisely the transitions here indicated. No water; nothing to satisfy even the best appetences of the mind and spirit; all heaven one sheet of darkness, and the night so black upon the earth that even the altar-stairs could not be found in the horrid gloom; if there was water, it had no effect upon the thirst; if there was bread, it was bitter; if there was a pillow, it was filled with pricking thorns. There is another variety of the story; the thirty-eighth verse presents it: “And Aaron the priest went up into mount Her at the commandment of the Lord, and died there.” Is that line wanting in our story? All men do not die on mountains. Would God we may die upon some high hill! It seems to our imagination nearer heaven to die away up on the mountain peaks than to die in the low damp valleys. Granted that it is but an imagination. We need such helps: we are so made that symbol and hint and parable assist the soul in its sublimest realisations of things Divine and of things to come. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Moses’ diary of travels and its teachings
God wished the people to remember these journeys; and He wishes all ages to know of them and to learn from them. Let us notice a few of the lessons God intends these journeys to teach us.
I. They impress upon us the great fact of God’s continued presence and interest in human life.
II. They point out to us that God is the one true and safe Guide through life.
III. They present to us a picture of human life, and thus tend to give us correct views of life.
IV. They show to us that the greatest evils of life and its only dangers come from sin.
V. They suggest the comforting thought that by trusting in God and following Him we are sure to possess the inheritance which He has promised His people. (D. Lloyd.)
The itinerary of Israel from Egypt to Canaan
I. An incentive to gratitude to God.
1. Emancipating them from bondage in Egypt.
2. Repeatedly delivering them from their enemies.
3. Infallibly guiding them in their journeys.
4. Constantly providing for them in the desert.
5. Inviolably guarding them from dangers.
II. An encouragement to obey and trust God. He is unchangeable; therefore His past doings are examples of what we may expect Him to do in thefuture. History, properly studied, will be the nurse of faith and hope (comp. Psa_78:3-8).
III. A monitor against sin.
1. Man’s proneness to sin.
2. God’s antagonism against sin.
3. The great evil of sin.. (W. Jones.)
The travels of Israel
This is a review of the travels of the children of Israel through the wilderness. It was a memorable history, and well worthy to be thus abridged, and the abridgment thus preserved, to the honour of God that led them and for the encouragement of the generations that followed. Observe here--
I. How the account was kept (Num_33:2). “Moses wrote their goings out.” When they began this tedious march God ordered him to keep a journal or diary, and to insert in it all the remarkable occurrences of their way, that it might be a satisfaction tohimself in the review and an instruction to others when it should be published. It may be of good use to private Christians, but especially for those in public stations, to preserve in writing an account of the providences of God concerning them, the constant series of mercies they have experienced, especially those turns and changes which have made some days of their lives more remarkable. Our memories are deceitful, and need this help, that we may “remember all the way which the Lord our God has led us in this wilderness” (Deu_8:2).
II. What the account itself was. It began with their departure out of Egypt, continued with their march through the wilderness, and ended in the plains of Moab, where they now lay encamped.
1. Some things are observed here concerning their departure out of Egypt, which they are minded of upon all occasions as a work of wonder never to be forgotten.
2. Concerning their travels towards Canaan, observe--
(1) They were continually upon the remove. When they had pitched a little while in one place, they departed from that to another. Such is our state in this world: we have here no continuing city.
(2) Most of their way lay through a wilderness, uninhabited, untracked, unfurnished even with the necessaries of human life, which magnifies the wisdom and power of God, by whose wonderful conduct and bounty the thousands of Israel not only subsisted for forty years in that desolate place, but came out at least as numerous and vigorous as they went in. At first they pitched in the edge of the wilderness (Num_33:6), but afterwards in the heart of it. By lesser difficulties God prepares His people for greater. We find them in the wilderness of Etham (Num_33:8), of Sin (Num_33:11). of Sinai (Num_33:15). Our removes in this world are but from one wilderness to another.
(3) That they were led to and fro, forward and backward, as in a maze or labyrinth, and yet were all the while under the direction of the pillar of cloud and fire. He led them out (Deu_32:10), and yet led them the right way (Psa_107:7). The way God takes in bringing His people to Himself is always the best way, though it does not always seem to us the best way.
(4) Some events are mentioned in this journal, as their want of water at Rephidim (Num_33:14), the death of Aaron (Num_33:38-39), the insult of Arad (Num_33:40); and the very name of Kibroth-hattaavah, “the grave of the lusters” (Num_33:16), has a story depending upon it. Thus we ought to keep in mind the providences of God concerning us and our families, us and our land, and the many instances of that Divine care which hath led us and fed us and kept us all our days hitherto. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
