Numbers 20:1

_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._ Then came the children of Israel ... in the first month - i:e., of the fortieth year (cf. Numbers 20:22, with Numbers 33:38), reckoning the months of the year according to the calendar received by the Israelites. In this history only the principal and most important incidents are recorded-those confined chiefly to the first or second and the last years of the journeyings in the wilderness, thence called et-Tih. Between the last verse of the preceding and the first verse of this chapter there is a long and undescribed interval of 38 years. But there is no indication of this wide chronological gap in the re

1._Then came the children of Israel. _In the twenty-third chapter of this book many intermediate stations are mentioned, which are not here referred to: perhaps because, from the time that God compelled them to draw back, _they _had made no advance for thirty whole years, but had wandered about by circuitous paths. In connecting the history, therefore, in this place he relates that they passed from the desert of Paran to the desert of Sin; because they then began to direct their journey straight towards the land of Canaan, and to advance more closely to it, so as at length to conclude their wanderings. When he tells us that Miriam died here, we may infer from hence that her life was greatly prolonged. It is probable that she was a girl of ten or twelve years of age, when Moses was born, since she was able to provide adroitly for his safety, (Exodus 2:4;) for although her name is n

1-13 After thirty-eight years' tedious abode in the wilderness, the armies of Israel advanced towards Canaan again. There was no water for the congregation. We live in a wanting world, and wherever we are, must expect to meet with something to put us out. It is a great mercy to have plenty of water, a mercy which, if we found the want of, we should more own the worth of. Hereupon they murmured against Moses and Aaron. They spake the same absurd and brutish language their fathers had done. It made their crime the worse, that they had smarted so long for the discontent and distrusts of their fathers, yet they venture in the same steps. Moses must again, in God's name, command water out of a rock for them; God is as able as ever to supply his people with what is needful for them. But Moses and Aaron acted wrong. They took much of the glory of this work of wonder to themselves; "Must we fet...

CHAPTER XX _The Israelites come to Zin, and Miriam dies_, 1. _They murmur for want of water_, 2-5. _Moses and Aaron make supplication at the tabernacle, and the_ _glory of the Lord appears_, 6. _He commands Moses to take his rod, gather the congregation_ _together, and bring water out of the rock_, 7, 8. _Moses takes the rod, gathers the Israelites together, chides_ _with them, and smites the rock twice, and the waters flow out_ _plenteously_, 9-11. _The Lord is offended with Moses and Aaron because they did not_...

Numbers 20 and Numbers 21 narrate the journey of the people from Kadesh round Mount Seir to the heights of Pisgah, near the Jordan, and the various incidents connected with that journey (compare Numbers 33:37). This formed the third and last stage of the progress of Israel from Sinai to Canaan, and took place in the fortieth year of the Exodus. The incidents are apparently not narrated in a strictly chronological order (see Numbers 21:1). The leading purpose of Numbers 20 seems to be to narrate the loss by the people

EXPOSITION THE LAST MARCH: FROM KADESH TO HOR (Numbers 20:1). NUMBERS 20:1 THEN CAME THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, EVEN THE WHOLE CONGREGATION. The latter words are emphatic here and in Numbers 20:22, and seem intended to mark the period of reassembly after the dispersion of nearly thirty eight years. Probably a portion of the tribes had visited Kadesh many times during those years, and perhaps it had never been wholly abandoned. INTO THE DESERT OF ZIN, _i.e; _if the western site be maintained for Kadesh, the Wady Murreh. See th

THEN CAME THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, EVEN THE WHOLE CONGREGATION,.... Not immediately after the transaction of the above things, recorded in the preceding Chapter s; as the sending of the spies into the land of Canaan, and their report of it; the business of Korah, and the giving of several laws respecting the priesthood, and the purification of the people; but thirty eight years after: nor was this the congregation that came out of Egypt; their carcasses, by this time, had fallen in the wilderness, as had been threatened, excepting some few, so that this was a new generation: what passed during this time we have very little account of, excepting their journeyings from place to place, in Numbers 33:1, by which it appears, there were eighteen stations between the place they encamped at when the spies were sent, and this they now came to; and that the place from whence they came hither was Ez...

FIRST MONTH That is, April....

10. AT KADESH IN THE FORTIETH YEAR: MURMURING AND CONQUEST CHAPTER 20 _ 1. The death of Miriam (Numbers 20:1)_ 2. The murmuring of the people (Numbers 20:2) 3. The divine instruction (Numbers 20:6) 4. Moses' and Aaron's failure (Numbers 20:9) 5. Edom's refusal (Numbers 20:14) 6. The death of Aaron (Numbers 20:23) Between the nineteenth and twentieth chapter lies the unrecorded period of almost 38 years, th

NUMBERS 20:1 (JE and P). THE DEATH OF MIRIAM AT KADESH. As the narrative is now arranged, this must be assumed to have occurred at the close of the forty years-' wanderings. Zin, which is identified with Kadesh, was reached, according to P, immediately before the final advance towards Canaan (_cf. Numbers 33:36_). But according to JE the arrival at Kadesh took place before the penal wanderings (Numbers 13:26); the omission of the years here is perhaps due to the compiler's effort to conceal the discrepancy....