The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 199

PRELIMINARY NOTE TO CHAPTERS XV.-XIX. A great break in the story of Israel occurs here. Perhaps in the whole history of the theocracy, from Abraham downwards, there is no such entire submergence of the chosen people to be noted. After the rebellion at Kadesh they disappear from view, -and they only reappear at Kadesh again after an interval of thirty-eight years. Only one occurrence of any historical moment can be assigned to this period (eh. xvi), -and that is recorded without note of time or place, because its ecclesia,tical interest gave it an abiding value for all time. The sacred history of Israel in the wilderness may be compared to one of the streams of that wilderness. From its source it runs, if circumstances be favourable, full and free for a certain distance, and even spreads itself abroad upon the more level ground ; here, however, it meets a thirstier soil: and more scorching heat; it loses itself suddenly and entirely. If its course ho. followed with doubt and difficulty, a few email water-holes may be discovered, at1d 1 perhaps in some exceptionally shaded and sheltered spot a permanent pool ; only at I the furthest end of the dried-up wady, near the great sea, the stream re-forms itself! •and flows on without interruption to its goal. The void in the record which thus divides in two the story of the exodus is explained readily and satisfactorily by the ,one fact that during all these years the history of Isrnel was actually in abeyance. For that history is the history of a theocracy, 11nd in the higher sense it is the history '<If God's dealings with his own people, as he leads them on "from strength to strength," until "every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." TbUB all ths Old Testament from Gen. xii. (in which the history properly so called commences) to the end of Joel.ma. has for its goal the entry into and conquest of the promised. land ; and thenoe again to 1 Kings x. and 2 Cbron. ix. it le11de up to the firm and full establishment of the temple and of the Lord's 11nointed in the place which be had chosen. But during the thirty.-eight years this advance was absolutely sus- pended ; the generation that excommunicated itself at K11desh had thenceforth no p11rt and no heritage in Israel ; their lives were spared indeed at the time, but they 'had to dle out and another generation had to take their pl11ce before the history of the theocracy could be resumed. Instead, therefore, of the blank causing perplexity or suspicion, it most strikingly corresponds with and confirms the whole tenor and purport of the Pent11teuch, and the Old Testament in general. It was at Kadeeh that the onward march of Israel, as Israel, was summarily suspended; it was from Kadesh that that march began once more after thirty-eight ye11re ; 11nd the s11crcd ·narrative conforms itself with the utmost simplicity and naturalnel!B to this fact. , The condition of the nation during this period of _submergence is a matter of "Considerable interest. " In endeavouring to picture it to ourselves, we are left to 11 few scattered statements, to some probable conclusions, and for the rest to mere -conjecture. The most important of these statements are as follows : - 1. Deut. viii. 2-6 ; xxix. 6, 6. God did not wholly abandon them to them- <flelves, He supplied them every day with manna, and also (no doubt) with water N2  180 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [cR. XV. 1-31.