Bibelkommentare

The people journey in the wilderness of Zin; they murmur against Moses for want of water, Numbers 20:2-5. God commandeth Moses to speak to the rock, that it might yield water, Numbers 20:7,8. Moses striking the rock twice, Numbers 20:9-11, displeaseth God, Numbers 20:12. Moses desiring passage through Edom, Numbers 20:14-17, is denied, Numbers 20:18-21. Aaron by God’s command delivering up his office to Eleazar his son, dieth, Numbers 20:21-28. All the congregation bemoan him, Numbers 20:29.

Then, to wit, after many other stations and long journeys here omitted. but particularly described Num 33.

The desert of Zin; a place near the land of Edom, distinct and distant from that,

Sin, Exodus 16:1.

In the first month, to wit, of the fortieth year, as is evident, because the next station to this was in Mount Hor, where Aaron died, Numbers 20:22,23, &c., who died in the fifth month of the fortieth year, Numbers 33:38. Moses doth not give us an exact journal of all their occurrences in the wilderness, but only of those which were most remarkable, and especially of those which happened in the first and second, and in the fortieth year.

Kadesh; whether the same place called Kadesh-barnea, where they were long since, Numbers 13:26, and to which they now return after thirty-eight years’ tedious travels and wanderings in the desert, Deu 2:14, or another place more southerly, it is not material. Miriam died four months before Aaron, and but a few more before Moses.

The water having followed them through all their former journeys, began now to fail them here, because they were now come near Canaan and other countries, where waters might be had by ordinary means, and therefore God would not use extraordinary, lest he should seem to prostitute the honour of miracles. This story, though like that Exo 17, is different from it, as appears by divers circumstances.

i.e. Suddenly, rather than to die such a lingering and painful death. Their sin was much greater than their parents’ in like case, because they should have taken warning by their miscarriages, and by the terrible effects of them, which their eyes had seen.

No text from Poole on this verse.

No text from Poole on this verse.

Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly; partly to avoid the growing rage of the people, for God’s singular protection of them did not exclude the use of ordinary means; and partly to go to God for relief and redress.

No text from Poole on this verse.

The rod; that rod which was laid up before the Lord in the tabernacle, as appears from Numbers 20:9. But whether it was Aaron’s rod, which was undoubtedly laid up there, Numbers 17:10, or Moses’s rod, by which he wrought so many miracles, it is not considerable; or whether it was not one and the same rod, which was commonly called Moses’s rod, as here, Numbers 20:11, and elsewhere, and sometimes Aaron’s rod, as Exodus 7:12, which may seem most probable. For it is likely, though not related elsewhere in Scripture, that wonder-working rod, called the rod of God, Exodus 4:20, was laid up in some part of the tabernacle, though not in or near the ark, where Aaron’s blossoming rod for a particular reason was put. Speak ye unto the rock, which will sooner hear and obey my commands than these sottish and stubborn people.