1 The children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month: and the people stayed in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there. 2 There was no water for the congregation: and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. 3 The people strove with Moses, and spoke, saying, "We wish that we had died when our brothers died before Yahweh! 4 Why have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals? 5 Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink." 6 Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces: and the glory of Yahweh appeared to them. 7 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 8 "Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water; and you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink." 9 Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, as he commanded him. 10 Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring you water out of this rock for you?" 11 Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice: and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. 12 Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you didn't believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." 13 These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with Yahweh, and he was sanctified in them. 14 Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: "Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the travail that has happened to us: 15 how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and our fathers: 16 and when we cried to Yahweh, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and brought us forth out of Egypt: and behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of your border. 17 "Please let us pass through your land: we will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go along the king's highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border." 18 Edom said to him, "You shall not pass through me, lest I come out with the sword against you." 19 The children of Israel said to him, "We will go up by the highway; and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then will I give its price: let me only, without (doing) anything (else), pass through on my feet." 20 He said, "You shall not pass through." Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand. 21 Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, so Israel turned away from him. 22 They traveled from Kadesh: and the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor. 23 Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the border of the land of Edom, saying, 24 "Aaron shall be gathered to his people; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you rebelled against my word at the waters of Meribah. 25 Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up to Mount Hor; 26 and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered (to his people), and shall die there." 27 Moses did as Yahweh commanded: and they went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. 28 Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there on the top of the mountain: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain. 29 When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.
The Israelites come to Zin, and Miriam dies, Numbers 20:1. They murmur for want of water, Numbers 20:2-5. Moses and Aaron make supplication at the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord appears, Numbers 20:6. He commands Moses to take his rod, gather the congregation together, and bring water out of the rock, Numbers 20:7, Numbers 20:8. Moses takes the rod, gathers the Israelites together, chides with them, and smites the rock twice, and the waters flow out plenteously, Numbers 20:9-11. The Lord is offended with Moses and Aaron because they did not sanctify him in the sight of the children of Israel, Numbers 20:12. The place is called Meribah, Numbers 20:13. Moses sends a friendly message to the king of Edom, begging liberty to pass through his territories, Numbers 20:14-17. The Edomites refuse, Numbers 20:18. The Israelites expostulate, Numbers 20:19. The Edomites still refuse, and prepare to attack them, Numbers 20:20, Numbers 20:21. The Israelites go to Mount Hor, Numbers 20:22. Aaron is commanded to prepare far his death, Numbers 20:23, Numbers 20:24. Aaron is stripped on Mount Hor, and his vestments put on Eleazar his son; Aaron dies, Numbers 20:25-28. The people mourn for him thirty days, Numbers 20:29.
INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 20
In this chapter is an account of the children of Israel coming to the wilderness of Zin, where Miriam died, and where wanting water they murmured, Numbers 20:1, upon which Moses and Aaron applied to the Lord, who ordered Moses to speak to a rock, which should give forth water, and which being smitten by him, accordingly did, Numbers 20:6, but Moses and Aaron, in their conduct of this affair, displeased the Lord, Numbers 20:12, after this, Moses sent to the king of Edom to desire a passage through his country, which request was refused, Numbers 20:14, upon Israel's coming to Mount Hor, Aaron, by order, went up to the mount, and, when stripped of his clothes, which were put on his son Eleazar, he died, lamented by all the people, Numbers 20:22.
(Numbers 20:1-13) The people come to Zin, They murmur for water, Moses directed to smite the rock, The infirmity of Moses and Aaron.
(Numbers 20:14-21) The Israelites are refused a passage through Edom.
(Numbers 20:22-29) Aaron reigns the priest's office to Eleazar, and dies in mount Hor.
Israel's Last Journey from Kadesh to the Heights of Pisgah in yhe Fields of Moab - Numbers 20-21
In the first month of the fortieth year, the whole congregation of Israel assembled again at Kadesh, in the desert of Zin, to commence the march to Canaan. In Kadesh, Miriam died (Numbers 20:1), and the people murmured against Moses and Aaron on account of the want of water. The Lord relieved this want, by pouring water from the rock; but Moses sinned on this occasion, so that he was not allowed to enter Canaan (Numbers 20:2-13). From Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom, to ask permission for the Israelites to pass peaceably through his land; but this was refused by the king of Edom (Numbers 20:14-21). In the meantime, the Israelites marched from Kadesh to Mount Hor, on the borders of the land of Edom; and there Aaron died, and Eleazar was invested with the high-priesthood in his stead (Numbers 20:22-29). On this march they were attacked by the Canaanitish king of Arad; but they gained a complete victory, and laid his cities under the ban (Numbers 21:1-3). As the king of Edom opposed their passing through his land, they were compelled to go from Mount Hor to the Red Sea, and round the land of Edom. On the way the murmuring people were bitten by poisonous serpents; but the penitent among them were healed of the bite of the serpent, by looking at the brazen serpent which Moses set up at the command of God (Numbers 21:4-9). After going round the Moabitish mountains, they turned to the north, and went along the eastern side of the Edomitish and Moabitish territory, as far as the Arnon, on the border of the Amoritish kingdom of Sihon, with the intention of going through to the Jordan, and so entering Canaan (Numbers 21:10-20). But as Sihon would not allow the Israelites to pass through his land, and made a hostile demonstration against them, they smote him and conquered his land, and also the northern Amoritish kingdom of Og, king of Bashan (Numbers 21:21-35), and forced their way through the Amoritish territory to the heights of Pisgah, for the purpose of going forward thence into the steppes of Moab by the Jordan (Numbers 22:1). These marches formed the third stage in the guidance of Israel through the desert to Canaan.
Death of Miriam. Water out of the Rock.Refusal of a Passage through Edom. Aaron's Death.Conquest over the King of Arad - Numbers 20-21:3
The events mentioned in the heading, which took place either in Kadesh or on the march thence to the mountain of Hor are grouped together in Numbers 20:1-21:3, rather in a classified order than in one that is strictly chronological. The death of Miriam took place during the time when the people were collected at Kadesh-barnea in the desert of Zin (Numbers 20:21). But when the whole nation assembled together in this desert there was a deficiency of water, which caused the people to murmur against Moses, until God relieved the want by a miracle (Numbers 20:2-13). It was from Kadesh that messengers were sent to the king of Edom (Numbers 20:14.); but instead of waiting at Kadesh till the messengers returned, Moses appears to have proceeded with the people in the meantime into the Arabah. When and where the messengers returned to Moses, we are not informed. So much is certain, however, that the Edomites did not come with an army against the Israelites (Numbers 20:20, Numbers 20:21), until they approached their land with the intention of passing through. For it was in the Arabah, at Mount Hor, that Israel first turned to go round the land of Edom (Numbers 21:4). The attack of the Canaanites of Arad (Numbers 21:1-3) who attempted to prevent the Israelites from advancing into the desert of Zin, occurred in the interval between the departure from Kadesh and the arrival in the Arabah at Mount Hor; so that if a chronological arrangement were adopted, this event would be placed in Numbers 20:22, between the first and second clauses of this verse. The words "and came to Mount Hor" (Numbers 20:22) are anticipatory, and introduce the most important event of all that period, viz., the death of Aaron at Mount Hor (Numbers 20:23-29).
(Note: Even Fries (pp. 53, 54) has admitted that the account in Numbers 21:1; Numbers 33:40, is to be regarded as a rehearsal of an event which took place before the arrival of the Israelites at Mount Hor, and that the conflict with the king of Arad must have occurred immediately upon the advance of Israel into the desert of Zin; and he correctly observes, that the sacred writer has arranged what stood in practical connection with the sin of Moses and Aaron, and the refusal of Edom, in the closest juxtaposition to those events: whereas, after he had once commenced his account of the tragical occurrences in ch. 20, there was no place throughout the whole of that chapter for mentioning the conflict with Arad; and consequently this battle could only find a place in the second line, after the record of the most memorable events which occurred between the death of Miriam and that of Aaron, and to which it was subordinate in actual significance. On the other hand, Fries objects to the arrangement we have adopted above, and supposes that Israel did not go straight from Kadesh through the Wady Murreh into the Arabah, and to the border of the (actual) land of Edom, and then turn back to the Red Sea; but that after the failure of the negotiations with the king of Edom, Moses turned at once from the desert of Zin and plain of Kadesh, and went back in a south-westerly direction to the Hebron road; and having followed this road to Jebel Araif, the south-western corner-pillar of the western Edom, turned at right angles and went by the side of Jebel Mukrah to the Arabah, where he was compelled to alter his course again through meeting with Mount Hor, the border-pillar of Edom at that point, and to go southwards to the Red Sea (pp. 88-9). But although this combination steers clear of the difficulty connected with our assumption, - viz., that when Israel advanced into the Arabah to encamp at Mount Hor, they had actually trodden upon the Edomitish territory in that part of the Arabah which connected the mountain land of Azazimeh, of which the Edomites had taken forcible possession, with their hereditary country, the mountains of Seir, - we cannot regard this view as in harmony with the biblical account. For, apart from the improbability of Moses going a second time to Mount Hor on the border of Edom, after he had been compelled to desist from his advance through the desert of Zin (Wady Murreh), and take a circuitous route, or rather make a retrograde movement, on the western side of the Edomitish territory of the land of Azazimeh, only to be driven back a second time, the account of the contest with the king of Arad is hard to reconcile with this combination. In that case the king of Arad must have attacked or overtaken the Israelites when they were collected together in the desert of Zin at Kadesh. But this does not tally with the words of Numbers 21:1, "When the Canaanite heard that Israel came (was approaching) by the way of the spies;" for if Moses turned round in Kadesh to go down the Hebron road as far as Jebel Araif, in consequence of the refusal of Edom, the Israelites did not take the way of the spies at all, for their way went northwards from Kadesh to Canaan. The supposition of Fries (p. 54), that the words in Numbers 21:1, "came by the way of the spies," are a permutation of those in Numbers 20:1, "came into the desert of Zin," and that the two perfectly coincide as to time, is forced; as the Israelites are described in Numbers 20:1 not only as coming into the desert of Zin in general, but as assembling together there at Kadesh.
Modern critics (Knobel and others) have also mutilated these chapters, and left only Numbers 20:1 (in part,), 2, 6, 22-29, Numbers 21:10-11; Numbers 22:1, as parts of the original work, whilst all the rest is described as a Jehovistic addition, partly from ancient sources and partly from the invention of the Jehovist himself. But the supposed contradiction - viz., that whilst the original work describes the Israelites as going through northern Edom, and going round the Moabitish territory in the more restricted sense, the Jehovist represents them as going round the land of Edom upon the west, south, and east (Numbers 20:21; Numbers 21:4), and also as going round the land of the Arnon in a still larger circle, and past other places as well (Numbers 21:12, Numbers 21:16, Numbers 21:18), - rests upon a false interpretation of the passages in question. The other arguments adduced - viz., the fact that the Jehovist gives great prominence to the hatred of the Edomites (Numbers 20:18, Numbers 20:20) and interweaves poetical sentences (Numbers 21:14, Numbers 21:15, Numbers 21:17, Numbers 21:18, Numbers 21:27, Numbers 21:28), the miraculous rod in Moses' hand (Numbers 20:8), and the etymology (Numbers 21:3), - are all just arguing in a circle, since the supposition that all these things are foreign to the original work, is not a fact demonstrated, but a simple petitio principii.)
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.