Numbers 20:6

_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

6._And Moses and Aaron went from the presence. _It is probable that they fled in fear, inasmuch as the tabernacle was a kind of refuge for them from the violence of the people. Still, we may conjecture from other passages that they had consideration not only for themselves, but for the wretched people, howsoever unworthy of it they might be so also, when they throw themselves upon their faces, I understand that they did so, not so much (to pray) that God would protect them from the wrath of their enemies, but also that He would calm these madmen by some appropriate remedy. Still their agitation appears to have been such as to deprive them of their ordinary self-restraint. Neither, indeed, does God try their faith and patience, as He often did on other occasions; perhaps because He saw that they were too much overwhelmed to be able to persevere inflexibly in pious zeal, patience, and care...

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...

The language of the murmurers is noteworthy. It has the air of a traditional remonstrance handed down from the last generation. Compare marginal references....

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 WENT FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE ASSEMBLY,.... Like fugitives, as Aben Ezra; they fled from them through fear, lest they should rise and fall upon them, and stone them, as their fathers were ready to do in a like case, Exodus 17:4. It is very likely this assembly gathered about the tents of Moses and Aaron, who went from thence unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; where the Lord had promised to meet Moses, and speak unto him, Exodus 29:42 AND THEY FELL UPON THEIR FACES; to pray, as Aben Ezra, that God would forgive the sin, of the people, and not break forth in his wrath against them, as he sometimes had done, and as their sin deserved, and that he would grant them what was needful for them. In the Vulgate Latin version the following words are added as their p

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

DOOR. entrance. TABERNACLE. tent. Hebrew. _'ohel._ See App-40....

_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....