The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 152

Tho whole Corm of the sentence, indeed, as I the Lord will make myself known. }fore well ns its J;lOsition, proclaim it so cleo.rly to probably " the Lord " belongs to the first be o.n addition by some l.o.ter ho.nd, tho.t the clause : "If there be to you a prophet of the question me.y be left to the common sense Lord, I will make myself known." So the o.nd knowledge of human nature of every Septuagint, lav 1•v11ra, 1rpo1,ir11i: V/lwv Kv- reader ; for the broad outlines of human pi'f', ... ')'VW(f;;i,jc,oµai. In a vision. 'Ev opa- cho.rncter, morality, and virtue are the same /l4TI. An internal vision, in which the eyes in every age, and are not displaced by any (even if open) saw nothing, but the effects of accident of position, or even of inspiration, vision were produced upon the sensorium by A slight examination of passages from other other and supernatural means (see, e. g., Amos sacred writers, which are sometimes adduced vii. 7, 8; Acts x. 11). Speak unto _him in a as analogous, will serve to show how profound dream. Rather, speak "in him "-1::l. The is the difference between what holy men cquld, voice that spake to the prophet was an in- say of themselves and what they cquld,not (cf. ternal voice, causing no vibration of the Dan. i. 19, 20; v. 11, 12; ix. 23; x. 11). On outer air, but affecting only the inner and the question of the inspiration of this verse, hidden seat of consciousness. It is not supposing it to be an interpolation, and as to necessary to restrict the prophetic dream to the probable author of it, see the Preface. AB the time of sleep ; a. waking state, resembling to the fact of Moses' meekness, we he.ve no what wo call day-dream, in which the ex- reason to doubt it, but we may legitimately ternal senses are quiescent, and the imagina- look npon the form in which it is stated as tion is freed from its usual restraints, was one of those conventional hyperboles which perhaps the more usual mental condition at are not uncommon even in the sacred writ- the time. Indeed the Divine communica- ings (cf. Gen. vii. 19; John xxi. 25). And tions made to Jose:eh (Matt. i. 20; ii. 13) we cannot avoid perceiving that Moses' meek- and to the Magi (ibid. eh. iL 12) are almost ness was far from being perfect, and was the only ones we read of as made during marred by sinful impatience and passion on actual sleep, unless we include the case of more than one recorded occasion. Pilate's wife (ibid. eh. xxvii 19) ; and none Ver. 4.-The Lord spakesuddenly. Hm\r of these were prophets in the ordinary sense. he spake we cannot tell, but the word "sud• Compare, however, .Acts ii 17 b. denly" (Septuagint, ,rapaxPTJI'") points to Ver. 7.-My servant Moses is not so. something unexpected and unllSllal. The No words could more clearly and sha.rply voice seems to have come to the three in their draw the distinction between Moses and the- tents before there WlL9 any thought in their whole laudabilis numerus of the prophets. minds of such an intervention. Come out It is strange that, in the face of a. statement ye three, i. e. out of the camp-probably the so general and so emphatic, it should hllve- camp of Moses and .Aaron, on the east of the been doubted whether it applied to such tabernacle court (see eh. iii. 38). prophets as Isaio.h or Daniel It was ex- Ver. 5.-The Lord came down in the pillar e.ctly in "visions" and in "dreams," i. e. of the cloud. The cloud which had been soar- under the peculiar psychological conditions ing above the tabernacle descended upon it so-called, that these greatest of prophets (see eh. xi. 25 and xii. 10). And stood in received their revelations from heaven. The the door of the tabernacle. It would seem exceeding richness and wonder of some of most natural to understand by these words these revelations did not alter the mode in the entrance to the holy place itself, and this which they were receh-ed, nor raise them out would manifestly accord best with the move- of the ordinary conditions of the gradus men ta of the cloud, as here described ; for propheticus. .As prophets of future things the cloud seems to have sunk down upon the they were much greater than Moses, and sacred tent in token that the Lord was in their writings mo.y be to us far more precious; some special sense present within it. On the but that docs not concern the present ques- other hand, the phrase must certainly be tion, which turns exclusively upon the rela- understood to mean the entrance of the court, tion between the Divine Giver and the human or sacred enclosure, in Levit. viii. 3, 31, 33, receiver of tho revelation. If words mean and pro bo.bly in other places. AB it is hardly nnything, tho assertion here is thnt Moses possible that the phrase can have had both stood on an altogether different footing from meanings, the latter must be preferred. And the "prophet of the Lord " in respect of the they both came forth. Not out of the sanc- communications which he received from the tuary, into which Miriam could not have Lord. It is this essential superiority of entered, but out of the enclosure. The position on tho po.rt of Moses which nlono wrath which lay upon them both, and the gives force and meanin~ to the important punishment which was about to be inflicted declo.rntions of Deut. xvi.ii. 15; John i. 21 b. ; upon one, were su.f!icient reasons for calling vi. 14 ; vii. 40, &c. Moses had no successor them out of the holy ground. in his rel.o.tions with God until that Son of Ver. 6.-Ifthere be a prophet among you man came, who was "in heaven" all the K2  132 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [011. xu.