The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 269

the desert or Zin, i. e., if the western site be the rebellion of Korab happened towards the maintained for Kadesh, the Wady Murreh. end of the period of wandering, and that the See the note on Kadesh. In the flret month. reference is to the plague which followed it; In the month Abib (Nisan), the vernal or it may be that the formula of co111P,laint month, when there was "much grass" (cf. had become stereotyped, as those of children John vi 10) in places a.t other seasons often do, and was employed from time to desert, and when travelling wa.s most easy. time without variation e.nd without definite From comparison of eh. xiv. SS ; xxxiii. SS reference. The latter supposition is strongly and the sequence of the narrative, it ap~rs supported by th11 cha.met.er of the words to have been the first month or the fortieth, which follow. and last, year of wandering. Then it wa.s Ver. 4. - Why have ye brought up the that they reassembled in the same neigh- congregation or the Lord into this wilder- bourhood from whence they ha.d dispersed so ness 1 These words are almost exactly re- long before (see the note before eh. xv.). peat.ed from E:a:od. :x:vii. 3. They, nnd those And the people abode (:l~!- Septuagint, which follow, are no doubt out of place if ,:(lri;m,,o,) in Xadesh. From the date given considered as expressing the feelings of the in eh. =xiii. 38 it would seem that they re- great bulk of the people, who had no know- mained three or four months in Ka.desh on this ledge of Egypt, a.nd had grown up in the occasion. This delay may have been occasioned wilderness. But on such occasions it is partly by the mourning for Miriam (cf. ver. always the few who put words into the 29), and partly by the necessity of a.waiting mouths of the many, a.nd the ringleaders in answers from Edom e.nd from Moab (see on this gainsaying would naturally be the sur- ver. 14). And Jiiriam died there, and waa vivors of the elder generation, whose dis• position was exactly the same as ever, and buried. Nothing could be more brief e.nd who ha.d always shown a remarkable want formal tbaD. this mention of the death of one of originality in their complaints. who had played a considerable part in Israel, Ver. 5.-No place of seed. Septuagint, and had perhaps wished to play a more con• r61ro, ov ob a,uipEra.. A place wl:iere there siderable part. It ca.n scarcely, however, be is no sowing, and therefore no harvest. doubted that her death in the unlovely wil- Yer. 6.-They tell upon their faces. See derness was a punishment like the death of note on eh. xiv. 5. her brothers. There is no reason whatever Ver. 8.-Take the rod. The pfz~oo,, or to suppose tha.t she had any part in the re- staff of office, with which Moses and Aaron bellion of Ka.desh, or that the sent.ence of had worked wonders before Pharaoh {Exod. death there pronounced included her; she vii. 9 11(], }, and with which Moses he.d smitten was indeed a.t this time advanced in years, the rock in Repbidim (E:a:od. :a:vii. 6). This out that would not in itself account for the rod had not been mentioned, nor perhe.ps fact that she died in exile; it is, no doubt, used, since then ; but we might certainly to the arrogance and rebellion recorded in have supposed that the instrument of so eh. xii. that we mu.et look for the true ex- many miraclCll would be reverently laid up planation of her untimely end. in the tabernacle "before the Lord," and Ver. 2.-There wae no we.ter. There was this we find from the next verse to have been a large natnral spring at Kadesb, and during the ease. Ge.ther thou the assembly to- the time of their previous sojourn there no gether, i. e. by their representative~. Speak complaint of this sort seems to 1ave arisen. ye U.11to the roek before their eyes. The At this time, however, the bulk of the en- word used for thf' rock in this narrative is campment may have lain in a dilferent direc- V:>~;:, instead of "'Wllj, as in E:a:od. xvii. 1t tion (cf. ver. 1 with eh. xiii 26), or the supply may have failed from temporary causes. In does not seem that a.ny certain distinction of either case a total absence of water need not meaning can be drawn between the words, be imagined, but only an insufficient supply. which are obviously i:nterchanged in Judges vi. 20, 21, and a.re both translated 1r!rpa by Ver. 8. - And the people eh.ode with the Septuagint; but the careful use of differ- Moses. As their fathers had done in similar ent terms in the two narratives serves to dis- circumstances, aa recorded in Exod. xvii tinguish them, just e.s the use of i:oflvot1,and Would God that we he.d died. See on eh. <11rvpioa, by St. Mark (vi 43; viii. 8, 19, xiv. 2. When our brethren died before the 20) helps to distinguish the two miracles of Lord. This is difficult, because the vi.sita- feeding the multitude. tiona of God at Kibroth-hattaavah (eh. xi. 84) and at Ka.desh (eh. xiv. 87} had over• Ver. 10.-Hear now, ye rebels. 0'1!:l)ti, taken not their brethren, but their fathers, Septuagint, ol a1r1,~i1,. The verb is used in eome thirty-eight years before. On the other a similar sense of Mosoe and Aaron them- hand, the daily mortality which had carried selves in ver. 24. It has been suggested that off their bretltren is clearl7. excluded by the this we.s the word really used by our Lord phrase, "before the Lord.• It may be that in Matt. v. 22, and translated l'"'flcl,. This. CB, XX, 1-29.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 253