Numbers 20:12

_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

12._And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron. _God here both sets forth their crime, and pronounces its punishment. Now, whilst unbelief is in itself a gross and detestable evil, God aggravates its guilt by declaring its consequence, viz., that He was defrauded of His glory, when Moses and Aaron, who ought to have been the proclaimers of the miracle, lay as it were confounded with shame. For, whereas their confidence, by exciting attention, would have sanctified God’s name, so by their mistrust it came to pass that all were led to think that there was nothing to be hoped from His assistance. When Moses not only ingenuously confesses his guilt, but also relates how he was condemned by God, and, in order that his disgrace may be more complete, introduces Him speaking as from His judgment-seat, this does not a little tend to establish the truth of his doctrine. For what human being, unless h...

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...

Verse Numbers 20:12. _BECAUSE YE BELIEVED ME NOT_] What was the offence for which Moses was excluded from the promised land? It appears to have consisted in some or all of the following particulars: 1. God had commanded him (Numbers 20:8) _to take the rod in his hand, and go and_ SPEAK TO THE ROCK, _and it_ _should give forth water_. It seems Moses did not think _speaking_ would be sufficient, therefore he _smote_ the rock without any command so to do. 2. He did this _twice_, which certainly in this case indicated a great perturbation of spirit, and want of attention to the presence of God. 3. He permitted his _spirit_ to be carried away by a sense of the people's disobedience, and thus, being _provoked_, he was led to speak unadvi

The command Numbers 20:8 was “Speak ye unto the rock.” The act of smiting, and especially with two strokes, indicates violent irritation on the part of Moses; as does also his unseemly mode of addressing the people: “Hear now, ye rebels.” The form too of the question, “must we, etc.,” directs the people not, as ought to have been the case, to God as their deliverer, but to Moses and Aaron personally. In fact the faithful servant of God, worn out by the reiterated perversities of the people, breaks down; and in the actual discharge of his duty as God’s representative before Israel, acts unworthily of the great function entrusted to him. Thus, Moses did not “sanctify God in the eyes of the children of Israel.” Aaron might have checked the intemperate words and acts of Moses, and did not. Hence, God punishes both by withdrawing them from their work for Him, and handing over

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 THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES AND AARON,.... Out of the cloud, where his glory appeared, and still continued: BECAUSE YE BELIEVED ME NOT, TO SANCTIFY ME IN THE EYES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL; that Moses and Aaron committed an evil which was displeasing to the Lord is certain, but what that was is variously represented. Some say their sin was, that the order was to speak to the rock, whereas it was smitten, and not spoken to; but why then was Moses bid to take the rod with him, if it was not to smite with it, as he had done before at Horeb? and besides, this would only have been the sin of Moses, and not of Aaron; others think, that what provoked the Lord was, that the Israelites were called "rebels"; but this is a name the Lord himself gave them, Numbers 17:10, and was what they justly deserved; and what after this Moses says of them, which, had this been the case, he wo

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

BELIEVED ME NOT. So Moses entered not in, because of unbelief. ME. Hence called "rebellion" in Numbers 20:24 with Numbers 27:14. Compare Deuteronomy 32:51. Compare "we" in Numbers 20:10. IN THE EYES, &C. His complaint in Numbers 11:21 was not public....