Numbers 7:89

Verse Numbers 7:89. To speak with him] To confer with God, and to receive farther discoveries of his will.

He heard the voice of one speaking unto him] Though Moses saw no similitude, but only heard a voice, yet he had the fullest proof of the presence as well as of the being of the Almighty. In this way God chose to manifest himself during that dispensation, till the fulness of the time came, in which the WORD was made flesh, and DWELT AMONG US. No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

The mercy-seat] Exodus 25:17, Exodus 25:17. As God gave oracular answers from this place, and spoke to Moses as it were face to face, hence the place was called the ORACLE, דביר debir, or speaking place, from דבר dabar, he spoke, 1 Kings 6:23. And as this mercy-seat represented our blessed Redeemer, so the apostle says that God, who had at sundry times, and in divers manners, SPOKEN in time past to the fathers by the prophets, hath, in these last days, SPOKEN unto us by his Son. Hebrews 1:1. Hence the incarnated Christ is the true דביר debir or oracle, in and by whom God speaks unto man.

By which we may at once see that though the place in which they now sojourned was a wilderness, as to cities, villages, and regular inhabitants, yet there was plenty of pasturage, else the Israelites could not have furnished these cattle, with all the sacrifices necessary for different occasions, and especially for the passover, which was celebrated during their sojourning in the desert, and which itself must have required an immense number of lambs, (see Numbers 9:4), when each family of the 600,000 males was obliged to provide one for itself.