Numbers 20:10

_AND THERE WAS NO WATER FOR THE CONGREGATION: AND THEY GATHERED THEMSELVES TOGETHER AGAINST MOSES AND AGAINST AARON._ There was no water for the congregation. There was at Kadesh a fountain, En-mishpat (Genesis 14:7), and at the first encampment of the Israelites there was no want of water. It was now, however, either partially dried up by the heat of the season, or had been exhausted by the demands of so vast a multitude. Verse 4,5. WHY HAVE YE BROUGHT UP THE CONGREGATION OF THE LORD INTO THIS WILDERNESS? What wilderness? Numbers 20:1 informs us that it was the desert of Zin х_ MIDBAR_ (H4057) _ TSIN_ (H6790)] - different from the wilderness of Sin. Midbar denotes an extensive open

10._And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together. _There is no doubt but that Moses was perplexed between hope and doubt, so that, although he committed the event to God, he was still to a certain extent oppressed with anxiety; for he would never have been so ready and prompt in obeying, and especially in such an unusually arduous matter, if he had been without faith. Aaron and himself had recently hidden themselves in alarm; it was, therefore, a task of no slight difficulty straightway to call the people, from whom they had fled, and voluntarily to encounter their madness. Thus far, then, we see nothing but a readiness to obey, conjoined with magnanimity, which is deserving of no common praise; but inasmuch as the unbelief of Moses is condemned by the heavenly Judge, in whose hands is the sovereign power, and at whose word we all stand or fall, we must acquiesce in His sentenc...

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...

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

AND MOSES AND AARON GATHERED THE CONGREGATION TOGETHER BEFORE THE ROCK,.... To which they were directed, and were to speak unto; before this they gathered not only the elders of the people, but as many of the congregation as could be well assembled together: AND HE SAID UNTO THEM; Moses, who was bid to take the rod, and was the principal person concerned in this affair: HEAR NOW, YE REBELS; such their fathers had been, and such they now were, a rebellious generation ever since they were known by him; not only rebellious against him their chief magistrate, but against the Lord himself, murmuring against him, being discontented and disobedient, see Deuteronomy 9:23: MUST WE FETCH YOU WATER OUT OF THIS ROCK? not only signifying their unworthiness of having such a miracle wrought for them, and as showing some degree of reluctance

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 20:2 (mainly JE). THE LACK OF WATER SUPPLIED BY A MIRACLE. The account of the people's demand for water, and of the means by which it was supplied, seems to be a duplicate of the narrative in Exodus 17:1, for the name _Meribah_ appears in both; but whereas there the scene is Horeb, here it is Kadesh. Probably the account in Ex. comes mainly from E, whilst this account proceeds from J. These stories of water having been produced miraculously from a rock by the stroke of a leader's rod are perhaps prosaic interpretations of poetical descriptions (like that preserved in Numbers 21:16) of the procuring of water by more ordinary means. The explanation of the offence through which both Moses and Aaron were

SAID. He spoke to the People instead of to the rock. MUST WE... ? Figure of speech _Erotesis._ App-6....

_The striking of the rock at Meribah_. Many characteristics of language indicate that this is mainly the work of P. In Exodus 17:1-7 there is another account (E) of the striking of the rock, the place being similarly named Meribah. It is probable that these are two traditions of the same event. In E it is placed at Horeb, early in the journeyings; here it is placed at their close. This two-fold striking of the rock appears to have influenced S. Paul's language in 1 Corinthians 10:4. See on Numbers 21:18....

HEAR NOW, YE REBELS— See ch. Numbers 17:10. What we render, _Must we fetch you water out of this rock?_ the Vulgate renders, _Can we, or are we able to fetch you,_ &c. which Houbigant follows: _an poterimus vobis aquam de ista petra extrahere?_ as much as to say, "What a strange demand! What! do you believe that _we_ are able to make water flow from the rock? Who can do this but the omnipotent God?...