The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 442

It ia of course possible that more than one place was known as the " giant's back- bone ; " but, on the other hand, the fact that at Moseroth Israel was near Mount Hor, and that they made five marches thence to Ezion-geber, is quite in accordance with the site usually assigned to it. It must remain, therefore, an unsettled point aa to which nothing more can be said than that a balance of probabilities is in favour of the identification of Rithmah with the first encampment at Kadesh. Proceeding on this assumption, we have thereafter eleven names of stations concerning which nothing is known, and nothing can be with any profit conjectured. Then come four others which are evidently the same aa those mentioned in Deut. x. 6, 7. That this latter passage is a fragment which has come into its present position (humanly speaking) by some accident of transcription does not admit of serious debate; but it is evidently a fragment of some ancient document, possibly of the very Itinerary of which we have only an abbreviation here. Comparing the two, we are met nt once with the difficulty that Aaron is said to have died and been buried at Moserah, ,d.iereas, according to the narrative and the Itinerary, he died on Mount Hor during the last journ,-y from Kadesh. This is not unnaturally explained by assuming that the official name of the encampment under, or opposite to, Mount Hor, from which Aaron ascended the mountain to die, was Moaerah or Moseroth, and that the Israelites were twice encamped there-once on their way to Ezion-geber and back to Kadesh, and again on the last march round Edom, to which the fragment in Deut. refers. There remain, however, unexplained the singular facts-I. That the station where Aaron died is called Moaerah in Deut. x. 6, whereas it ia called Mount Hor not only in the narrative, but in the Itinerary, which nevertheless does give the name Moseroth to this very station when occupied on a previous occasion. 2. That the fragment gives Bene-Jaakan, Moseroth, Gudgod, and Jotbath aa stages on the last journey, whereas the Itinerary gives them (the order of the first two being inverted) aa stages on a previous journey, and gives other names for the encampments of the last journey. There ia no doubt room for all four, and more besides, between Mount Hor and Oboth; but it cannot be denied that there is an appearance of error either in the fragment or in the Itinerary. A further objection has been made to the statement that Israel marched from Ezion-geber to Kadeah, both on the score of distance and of the apparent a"baurdity of returning to Kadeah only to retrace their steps once more. It ia replied (1) that the return to Kadeah for the final move may have been hurried, and no regular en- campment pitched ; (2) that when Israel returned to Kadeah it was still in expectation of entering Canaan " by the way of the spies," and in ignorancl' that they would have to treat with Edom for a passage-much more that they would have to como down the Arabah once again. Lastly, with respect to the names which occur after Ije-abarim, we have again an almost total want of coincidence with this peculiarity, that the narrative gives seven names where the Itinerary only gives three. It must, however, be remembered that the whole distance from the brook of Amon, where the Israelites crossed it, to the Arboth Moab is only thirty miles in a straight line. Over this short distance it ia quite likely that the armies of Israel moved in lines more or leas parallel, the taber- nacle probably only shifting its place aa the general advance made it desirable. That the two accounts are baaed on different documents, or drawn from different sources, is likely enough ; but both may nevertheless be equally correct. If (aa regards the last march) one record was kept by Eleazar, and another by Joshua, the apparent disagreement may be readily explained. OH, XXXIII. 1-49,] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 431