Lange Commentary - Numbers 20:1

Lange Commentary - Numbers 20:1 - 20:13

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Lange Commentary - Numbers 20:1 - 20:13

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

SEVENTH SECTION

Retrospect of the Settlement in Kadesh Miriam’s Death. The Great Mortality. The Destiny of Moses and Aaron to die in the Desert on Account of their Offence at Meribah

Num_20:1-13

¹ Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there. ²And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. ³And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren ^cdied before the Lord! ⁴And why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? ⁵And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink. ⁶And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them.

⁷And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ⁸Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock; so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. ⁹And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him. ¹⁰And Moses and Aaron gathered the ^dcongregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? ¹¹And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.

¹²And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this ¹³congregation into the land which I have given them. This is the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Our text has become the knotty point of the greatest misunderstandings. Usually it is understood as follows. The children of Israel came once again to Kadesh in the first month of the fortieth year. And after that, all these things took place that are related afterwards. The most positive facts speak against this fixed assumption. First, the clear testimony of Deuteronomy 1. Second, the history of the water of strife. That is to say, had the Israelites made themselves familiar with the neighborhood of Kadesh-Barnea, then they would have known also its water-springs; but according to our passage, they have hardly more than arrived in the desert of Zin, and have as yet found no springs in it. Third, the people strove with Moses saying: Would that we had perished when our brethren perished before the Lord. After forty years they could not have spoken of brothers that had perished, but only of fathers. Almost the whole generation of the fathers was now buried. They do not even seem to have experienced as yet the rebellion of Korah, for Keil justly remarks: “by that they do not mean the rebellion of Korah (Knobel), for whose destruction âָּåַò , exspirare, is no fitting expression, but those that died gradually during the thirty-eight years.” The rest of their complaint, also, agrees better with the beginning of their sojourn in the desert than with a period when they had long since accustomed themselves to the steppe. According to the internal relations, the murmuring at the want of water connects very simply with the murmuring at the want of bread or food at the Graves of Lust (11.), and falls in the period of the settlement in the desert of Paran, Num_12:16.

Accordingly we assume, that the beginning of Chap.20. is to be understood as pluperfect. Now the children of Israel had come, i.e. the host of God with the whole congregation, into the wilderness of Zin, and the people encamped at Kadesh. More definitely the chronological order was as follows. On the 20th day of the second month of the second year (of the Exodus) the Israelites departed from Sinai (Num_10:11). Since then about a year has elapsed until the settlement in Paran, or till the first month of which our chapter speaks, by which, therefore, is to be understood the third year, because the sentence of a forty years’ abode in the wilderness cannot well be set at a later period. Moreover, it must not be left unnoticed, that already after the meeting of the people, chap. 14, it is said: only Joshua and Caleb shall enter the land of Canaan, so that we must suppose that Moses and Aaron had already received their sentence. It may be further added, that a failure on the part of the great man of God more probably occurred in the first years of his course than at the close, when he was so near his goal.

The motive for the chronological displacement of our history, as was already intimated, was to combine in one account the fates of these two brothers and their sister.

A return of the story to an older history appears to be presented also in the section Num_21:1-3. The account of the defeat of Israel there related is the old story of the unsuccessful raid into the south of Canaan (Num_14:40-45). It is resumed again in this place on account of the vow that Israel made at that time, and now fulfils, of which we will treat further on. Also according to Knobel’s way of seeing the matter, the text not only speaks of two periods of abode in Kadesh, but also according to “the Jehovistic document” of a single abode there (p. 103). “The old register of encampments likewise recognizes only one abode in Kadesh.”

[On the view that there was only one abode in Kadesh, and that the host arrived there not earlier than in the third year of the Exodus, and possibly later, see Tr.’s note at the end of Numbers 14. Dr. Lange’s appeal to Deuteronomy 1. is an argument that deserves more amplification. The language of Deu_1:19, particularly: “We went through all that great and terrible wilderness,” implies a longer journey and more varied experience than could be compressed into eighty days or so. The same may be said of 20:33, which, compared with Num_9:15-23, seems to refer to the wanderings from Sinai to Kadesh.—Tr.]

Num_20:1. On the desert of Zin and Kadesh-Barnea, see above at Num_12:16. On Kadesh see also the article in Gesenius. According to Keil, and the common view, the first month falls in the fortieth year of the Exodus. A difficulty of that view is presented in the inquiry: Why is nothing said of the want of water during the first stay at Kadesh, whereas it is spoken of in reference to the second?

Num_20:4. The displeasure at the want of water again excites the imagination of the malcontents about the deficiencies of the desert in general.

Num_20:6. Moses and Aaron prostrate themselves helplessly at the door of the Tabernacle. To this holy helplessness and surrender, one might say, there corresponds here, too, a wondrous exaltation. The glory of the Lord appeared to them. Let us here call to mind once more how near to one another are the notions, the appearing of the glory of the Lord, and the appearing of the Angel of the Lord.

Ver.7. The instruction Jehovah gives is very different from the instruction at Rephidim (Exo_17:5). On that occasion of drought stronger means were used for the miracle. Moses with some of the elders had to go off away from the people; here he was to take a stand opposite the rock with all the elders and the whole congregation. There he had to smite the rock with his staff; but here Moses and Aaron were simply to speak to the rock, i.e. in a symbolical sense command the rock, though he was provided with the rod in his hand. The help was to be miraculously near, as it was often prepared for the discoverers of springs in sacred history. Jehovah’s directions, therefore, demand of the prophet the most decided confidence and composure of spirit.

Num_20:9. He took the staff from before Jehovah. Does that mean: the staff had been deposited in the sanctuary? It was the miraculous rod that he had in his hand when he received commissions from Jehovah.

Num_20:10-11. Wherein consisted Moses’ sin, in which, as one must suppose, Aaron too was involved as regarded feeling? Absolute unbelief cannot be meant; otherwise it is impossible that Moses would have smote the rock. For it is utterly inconceivable that he acted so in superstitious reliance on the magical effect of his staff. Jehovah’s reproof intimates what was the offence: Ye have not unconditionally believed and obeyed me in a way to prove thereby to the children of Israel that I am the Holy One. The bestowal of water should have borne the character of extreme facility and manifested thereby the majesty of the personal Jehovah in His omnipotence and condescension. To His people, despairing from thirst, Jehovah would grant, of free grace and without reproach, the miraculous fountain. Moses, on the contrary, did not let himself be freed from his indignation at the people by the sight of the glory of the Lord. His address to the people reproaches them as rebels, and expresses not so much a real doubt about the approaching grant, as a contempt for the “mutinous” nation that really was not worth being helped, especially by such a divine miracle: water from the rock. Then he smites twice on the rock, instead of simply speaking to it, with a displeasure that really wanted to smite the people. This disobedience as to form also comes in for consideration, but is not the chief thing in itself. Yet there is reflected in it a feeling of disgust, of fleshly zeal, by which, as the representative of Jehovah, he obscures and distorts to the people the image of Jehovah Himself. How many zealots act just so in the most glaring way, yet suppose that in that way they glorify God before His people! Let it be noted, that it was only on account of this trait of fanatical excitement of the two men, by which they embittered a great gift of free compassion, an hour of pure grace, that entrance into the earthly Canaan, i.e. the ideal completion of their task was denied them.

According to Psa_106:33, a chief stress is laid on the inconsiderate words of Moses, that plainly betrayed his troubled, exasperated feeling. Concerning the fable, falsely ascribed to the Rabbins, that the rock followed the Israelites from Rephidim to Kadesh, see the note of Keil in loc. The symbolical side of the underlying history is brought out in 1Co_10:4. Concerning the rock-fountain at Rephidim, and also concerning the identification of the events, see the Biblew. comm. on Exo_17:1, p. 65. Also Keil on Exo_17:1.

HOMILETICAL HINTS

Chap.Num_20:1-13. The water of strife and the impatience of Moses. The impatience of Moses as the final explosion of a displeasure again and again restrained and subdued through many years, hence not without connection with his seemingly too early death (see Psalms 90). Here, therefore, was verified the Old Testament saying: “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” Still this fate of death also was finally a mercy, and not less a miracle of wisdom. The death of the great brothers and sister.

Footnotes:

And.

omit God.

perished.

assembly.

Tent of Meeting.

congregation.

shall.

assembly.

That is, strife.

where.

chode.