Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadThe Revelation of Law in Scripture by Patrick Fairbairn: 14. Appendix B, Page 9: Interpretation Of Num_12:6-8, And The Prophet Like To Moses
Subjects in this Topic:
Appendix B, Page 9: Interpretation Of Num_12:6-8, And The Prophet Like To Moses
IN the text, we have given the precise and literal rendering of Num_12:6-8. But as a different view has been presented of their import, and one on which some important conclusions are founded, particularly in a treatise entitled the “Harmony of the Mosaic and Geologic Records,” a few explanatory remarks are necessary. That the words in Num_12:6, “If there be a prophet among you,” answer with substantial correctness to the original, which more literally runs, “If there be your prophet,” is so obvious, that had another meaning not been suggested, we should scarcely have imagined any other could have been thought of. The Chaldee paraphrases, “If there should be prophets to you;” and all commentators of any note give a similar sense. The connection also seems conclusive in its favour; for Aaron and Miriam were here ranging themselves against Moses, and on the side of the people; they were endeavouring to raise a popular tumult against their brother, so that the expression “your prophet,” spoken generally, and in respect to the people, is manifestly equivalent to “a prophet from among you”—one, not like Moses, in a sense apart from, but out of your own number. To render—as is done in the treatise referred to—“If he (viz. Moses) were your prophet”—i.e., the prophet of Aaron and Miriam, is against the preceding context, where the question is respecting a prophet from God, not to them, but to the people; and in respect to what follows, it involves a kind of incongruity. For it would represent God as intimating that he would have given visions and dreams to Moses, had he been the prophet of Aaron and Miriam. Did Aaron himself, in consequence of being a prophet under Moses, get revelations in such a way from God? We certainly read of none; and, looking at his conduct on the present occasion, we should judge it very unlikely that he had received any.
The two clauses, “I will make myself known to him in a vision, in a dream will I speak to him,” explain one another. The revelation was to be made in the imperfect form of a vision; but as this term is of somewhat doubtful import, and does not of itself sufficiently indicate the imperfection in the mode, another clause is added, to make it more explicit—“in a dream I will speak to him.” All the Jewish commentators understood a certain degree of obscurity to be implied in communications so made. And, as Baumgarten has justly remarked on the passage, “A divine revelation by dreams forms a complete contrast to revelation as made in Paradise, where Jehovah walked, and where, therefore, his appearance was made in a quiet manner, in connection with the things of the external world, and presented itself to man, while in his quite natural state.” Here, on the contrary, he was to be taken out of his natural state, isolated from surrounding objects, and raised merely for the moment, in his spiritual part, into communion with Heaven. Such was God’s ordinary mode of communicating with the prophets, usually so called, but not his mode of communicating with Moses—otherwise, Moses had, in this respect, enjoyed no peculiar distinction.
The distinction he actually possessed is stated in the second part of the declaration. In this part, the word rendered vision in the first part again occurs, מַרְאֶה and is often translated adverbially, as in the authorised version, “apparently.” “I will show him the thing as it is,” is Abenezra’s explanation. Rosenmüller has “adspectu,” and others render in a similar manner. There is no material difference in most of the explanations, nor will there be found any ambiguity in the double use of the same word, if only it is noted that in the case of the ordinary prophet, mentioned in the first part, the word was plainly intended to denote the form and method of the Divine revelation made to him; while here it has respect rather to the personal manifestation of the revealing God, “Mouth to mouth I speak to him, and appearance.” What can this mean, in such a connection, but visible, open manifestation? As indeed, the last clause, which is evidently epexegetical of what precedes, renders manifest, “and the similitude or form of the Lord he beholds.” Perspicuity and distinctness are the characteristics here, the employment of ordinary converse, and, as a natural consequence, the disuse of dark or enigmatical sentences. This is precisely such a distinction in behalf of Moses as the whole circumstances would lead us to expect.
In regard to the purpose for which, in the treatise referred to at the beginning of this note, a different interpretation is sought to be established, viz., to represent Moses as having got the professedly historical account of creation in Genesis 1 by vision, it is open to other, and these also insuperable objections. On this point, however, we are not called to enter. We simply state that there is no instance of what is given to the Church as history having been communicated to the church by way of vision, except in such cases as the visions recorded in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, or Revelation 12, where, in a dramatic representation of a connected series of events, the portion already past has also a certain place—an essentially different case, and very differently exhibited also from that of the Mosaic account of the creation. To regard this as given by vision, is to confound the real and the ideal, history and prophecy. Nor can we bring, at least, the substance of the historical narrative contained in the three first chapters of Genesis so far down as the time of Moses. The great facts there related formed the very basis of the primeval religion; and either exactly the same history, or another very much akin to it, must have been communicated to the earliest worshippers of God.
Not to dwell, however, upon such points, it is plain, from the right interpretation and clear import of this passage in Numbers, what was required to the full verification of the closely related passage in Deu_18:18, “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” From the connection in which the passage stands, there can be little doubt that it had a certain respect to the prophetic testimony in general, which was to be continued among the covenant people. But the specific qualification included in the words like unto thee, leave as little room to doubt on the other side, that nothing more than a partial and provisional fulfilment could be given to the prediction by prophets of an ordinary kind.
There was a general resemblance between Moses and every prophet who received a Divine communication to deliver to the people; not along with that resemblance there was also an important difference—a marked inferiority in the case of the ordinary prophet. His communications came only in vision and by dream, while Moses received them by a waking, face-to-face intercommunion; so that the people of our Lord’s time justly expected the prophecy to receive a higher exemplification than it had yet found in the past, and the apostles had both the import of the original, and the general feeling of their countrymen on their side, when they applied it specifically to the Messiah. It was manifestly the common understanding in their time, that the Messiah was to be emphatically the prophet spoken of; the only question was, whether Jesus of Nazareth was the person in whom the terms of the prediction had met with their fulfilment. That He was this, and, as such, not only like Moses, in that wherein he differed from the ordinary members of the prophetic order, but even rising far beyond him, must be the conviction of all who believe in His Messiahship. And though other points of resemblance betwixt Him and Moses should not be overlooked, yet when considered simply in respect to prophetic standing and gifts, it is in the particular point indicated in Num_12:6-8, that the likeness should be viewed as more peculiarly exemplified. The prophet like to Moses, in the full sense, could only be the one who received his revelations like Moses; in the first instance, Christ, and subordinately the apostles whom He sent forth to make known His mind and will to men.