The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 426

lands on both sides the Jabbok, from the Ver. 6.-Shall your brethren go to war, Wildy Hesban on the south, to the Yermuk and shall ye sit here 1 Moses had good and lnke of Tiberio.a on the north, now known cause to feel great anxiety about the entry 11s the provinces of Belka and Jebel Ajlun. into Cana.an proper. Once already the faith These lands are by no means uniformly flat, and courage of the people had failed them on as the name "Mount Gilead" testifies, but the very threshold of the promised land, include mountains and hills covered with fine and a slight disconragement might bring open forests of oak (cf. 2 Sam. xviii 8, 9) as about a similar calamity. Hence he spoke well as rolling downs and treeless plains. with a degree of sharpness which does not The soil is almost everywhere of great fer- appear to have been deserved. tility, and the water supply, although very Ver. 7.-Discourage. The verb ~iJ, trans- scanty in summer, is sufficient if carefully lated "discourage" here and in ver. 9, is of husbanded. Even now these provinces pro- somewhat doubtful meaning. The Septua- duce great store of grain, and are depastured gint renders it by o,aarpit/Jw, and perhaps the by vast flocks of sheep. In Roman times, as sense is, "Why do ye draw away the heart1" the innumerable ruins testify, they were filled i. e. render it averse from going over. with a large and opulent population. Indeed Ver. 8.-Thus did your fathers. It is there could be no comparison in point of impossible not to see that this mode of a~- agricultural and pastoral value between these dress is in striking contrast to that used m open and fertile lands and the broken, stony the Book of Deuteronomy (e. g. in eh. i. 22, country of Southern Palestine. If they ever 27 ; v. 3, 23). At the same time it is ob- enjoy again the blessing of a strong govern- viously the more natural, and the more in ment and continuous peace they will again accordance with facts, because there was not justify the choice of Reuben an~ Ga~. A a man left of all those who had rebelled at place for cattle. C\p~ (Septuagmt, ro1ro,) Kadesh. At Kadesh-:Barnea. This moue of is used here in the broader sense of district (cf. Gen. i. 9), and is equivalent to n~ in writing the name forms a. link between t~e closing chapters of Numbers (here and m eh. Lrnv. 4) and tho two following books. ver. 4. Ver. 3.-Ataroth. As to the nine places In Deuteronomy it occurs four times, and here mentioned, see on vers. 3i--38. They "Kadesh" twice. In Joshua "Kadesh- all lie to the south of Gilead, properly so Barnea" occurs exclusively. In the later called, within a comparatively short aistance books " Kadesh " only is used, as in Genesis of the route by which the main body of the and in the previous chapters of Numbers. Israelites had advanced. Probably the cattle The meaning of the combination is uncertain, which followed the host were still grazing and the etymology of " Barnea" altogether under gua.rd around these places, and it was obscure. It may be an old name attaching very natural that tribes which had hitherto to the place before it became known as a lived closely crowded together should not at sanctuary. The Septuagint has Kao11~ roii first contemplate spreading themselves very Bapv~ in one place, as though it were the far afield. name of a man. Ver. 5.-:Bring us not over J"ordan. The Ver. 9. -When they went up, i. e. no two tribes have been charged on the strength doubt the spies, although the wortl is not of these words with "shameless selfishness," expressed. Moses, indeed, in the heat of his but there is nothing to justify such an accus- displeasure, seemed to charge their ''fathers" ation. If they thought o.t all of the effect generally with the wickedness of ten men. of their request upon their brethren, it is No further proof is needed to show that quite likely that they intended to do them a Moses was often disposed to speak un - kindness by leaving them more room on the o.d visedly with his lips. other side Jordan ; and indeed Canao.n proper was a.II too strait for such a population. Ver. 11.-That ea.me up out of Egypt, Whether they were wise in wishing to stay in from twenty years old and upward. !lere the wider and more attractive lands which is another instance of the haste nntl mac- they had seen is another matter. They knew curacy with which Moses spoke. The Divine tho.t the God of Israel had designed to plant sentence of exclusion had been pronouncetl his people between Jordan and the sea, o.nd upon nil who were numbered at Sinni 11s they certainly risked a partial sp,vemnce from being then over twenty (eh. xiv. 29). his promises and his protection by remaining Ver. 12.-The Ke11ezite. See on chap. whero they did. The subsequ1mt history of xiii. 6. the trans-J ordo.nic tribes is a melancholy Ver. 14.-All increase of sinful men. commentary on the real unwisdom of their nUlil;l is rendered by the Septu:igint av11- choico. Yet it would have been difficult for rp,µ.µa, which properly means n contusion them to know that they were wrong, except or fracture; but it is probably equivalent to by an instinct of foith which no Israelites " brood," used in a cou tern ptuous sense. perhaps at thiit tune possesse<!- Tlie strong language of Moses was not justi-  THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CH, XXXII, 1-41.