translates ,rapd TO opoc, but no doubt the reckoned as the pro:pert,Y of Edom. We may wol'd means a " high road" in the original suppose that at this time the encampment sense of a raised causeway (cf. Isa. lvii. 14). stretched along the Arabah in front of the Such a road is still called Derb es Sultan- mountain (see on eh. xxxiii. 30; Dent. x. 6). Emperor-road. I will only, without doing Ver. 24.-Aaron shall be gathered unto anything else, go through on my feet. his people. On this expression see at Gen. Ratner, "It is nothing : " (i;,.';1-1'~ P'J. xx.-. 8, Sef>tuagint, a:1.:1.d TO ,rpii.yp.a oiio,v iari") "I Ver. 25.-:Bring them ,ap unto :llount will go through on my feet." They meant, Hor. It can scarcely be doubted that the "We do not ask for anything of value, only object of this command waa to produce a leave to pass through." deeper effect upon the people. The whole multitude would be able to see the high Ver. 22.-Alld the children of Israel, even priest, whose form had been so familiar to the whole congregation (see note on ver. them as Ion" as they could remember any- 1), journeyed from Xadesh, and came unto I hing, slowly ascending the bare sides of the llount Hor. If the narrative follows the mountain ; and they knew that he went up order of time, we must suppose that the to die.. Tho whole multitude would be able Edomites at once blocked the passes near to to see another and a younger man descending Kadesh, and thus compelled the Israelites to by the same path in the same priestly robes, journey southwards for some distance until and they knew that Aaron was dead, and they were clear of the Azazimi!.t; they would that Eleazar was high priest in his room. then turn eastwards again and make their Death is often most striking when least way across the plateau of Paran to the expected, but there are occasions (and this Arabah at a point opposite Mount Hor. It was one) when it gains in effect by being is supposed by many, although it finds no invested in a c.irtain simple ceremonial. support in the narrative ·itself, that the Ver. 28.-Moses stripped Aaron of his armed resistance offered by Edom is out of garments, and put them npon Eleaza.r his chronological order in vcr. 20, and only son. This was done in token that the office occnrred in fact when the Israelites had was transferred ; it was done out of sight, reached the neighbourhood of Mount Hor, and far above, in token that the priesthood and were preparing to ascend the Wady was perpetual, although the priest was mortal Ghuweir, On the name of Mount Hor (iyy Aaron died there. In this case, as in that ii1) see on eh. xxxiv. 7, 8. There can be of Miriam (ver. I), and of Moses himself no doubt that tradition is right in identify- (Deut. :uxiv. 6), no details a.re given. God ing it with theJebel Harun(mountof Aaron), drew as it were a veil over a departure a lofty and precipitous mountain rising hence which could but be very sad, because between the Arabah and the site of Petra. it was in a special sense the wages of sin. On one of its two summits the tomb of We may/erhaps conclude that Aaron died Aaron is still shown, o.nd although this is alone, an was buried, as Moses was, by God ; itself worthless a.s evidence, yet tho charo.cter otherwise Moses awl Eleazar would have and position of the mountain are altogether been unclean under the law of eh. xi.x. 11 in agreement with the logend. (cf. o.lso Levit. x.xi. 11 ). Ver. 23. -:By the ooast of the land of Vor. 29.-They mourned for Aaron thirty Edom. Mount Hor was on the eastern side days. The Egyptians prolonged their of the Arabah, which at this point certainly mourning for seventy days (Gen. L 3), but formed the frontier of• Edom; but it was no thirty days seems to have been th~ longest doubt untenantcd, owing to its bare and period allowod amonq the Israelites (cf. precipitous character, and therefore was not Dent. uxiv, 8),
HOMILETICS. Vers. 1-29.-Sorrows and trials of the way. We lmv11 in this chapter, epiritu~lly, the final departure of the Church of God upon its last journey towards the promrned land; and we ho.ve certain sad incidents of moral failure, of disappointment, and of doath which marked the commencement of that journey. !, CONSIDER, THEREFORE, WITH RESPECT TO THE POSITION OF !SRAEL-1. That he was once more at Kadesh, not one sttp nearer lwme than he had been thirty-eight years before. Bccauee h_e had rebelle~ then hie life had run to waste ever since, and ~een lost like the fountam of Kadesh m the sands, and only now, after such a lapse of hme, and o.fter so much suffering, did he find himself in a position to recommence the mo.rch then suspended. Even so it is with Churches which have reached o. certain point, 11.nd then h11ve rebelled o.gaiust the voice of God. Their history runs to wuete; they '256 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CH, XX, 1-2f