Water Flows, but the Leaders Will Not Cross

“The first month” is given without a year. Aaron’s death in 33:38 is dated to the fortieth year, so this is most likely the first month of that year, and some thirty-eight years pass unrecorded between chapters 19 and 20. Miriam, who once watched over the infant Moses (Exodus 2:4), dies before either brother.

The lack of water is stated for the first time since Rephidim (Exodus 17:1). Jewish tradition (Taanit 9a) joined the two notices: the well that followed Israel was given for Miriam’s sake, and it failed when she died.

“Chode” is the old past tense of chide, the Hebrew riv, to quarrel or bring a lawsuit, the root that names Meribah in verse 13. “When our brethren died before the LORD” most likely points to the plague after Korah (16:49).

The cattle are named beside the people, and the LORD’s answer in verse 8 names them too: “the congregation and their beasts”. The people call themselves the congregation of the LORD even as they accuse his servants.

Figs, vines and pomegranates are exactly the fruit the scouts carried back from Eshcol in 13:23. The generation that refused the land now complains that the wilderness lacks what the land had shown them. “Evil place” uses ra, the word of the “evil report”.

“From the presence of the assembly” is literally “from the face of the assembly”: they turn from the crowd’s face and fall on their own. As in 16:19 and 16:42, the glory appears at the tent before any instruction is given.

The LORD speaks to Moses alone, though both brothers had fallen on their faces; the command that follows uses plural verbs and takes in Aaron.

“Speak ye” is plural, so Aaron is to speak with Moses. “His water” is the rock’s own water, as though the rock held it and needed only to be told. The command promises drink for the beasts as well, answering the “cattle” of verse 4.

“From before the LORD” is where Aaron’s budded rod was laid up in 17:10, which is why many read this as that rod; others take it as Moses’ own rod of Exodus 17:5. Either way he takes it “as he commanded him”.

“Rebels” is hammorim, from marah, the root 17:10 used of the “rebels” whom Aaron’s rod was kept to warn. The Hebrew is “this rock”, definite, the one chosen before their eyes.

At Horeb Moses had been told to strike, and the rock there was tsur (Exodus 17:6); here the word is sela, a crag or cliff face, and he was told to speak. The blow is struck twice.

“Believed me not” is the verb of 14:11, where the LORD asked of the people, “how long will it be ere they believe me”. The charge once laid on the whole congregation is now laid on Moses and Aaron.

Meribah means “strife”. Exodus 17:7 already has a Meribah, at Rephidim, which is why 27:14 calls this one “Meribah in Kadesh”. “He was sanctified”, vayyiqqadesh, sounds out the name Kadesh, the holy place where holiness was not shown.

“Travail” is telaah, hardship, the word of Exodus 18:8, where Moses told Jethro “all the travail that had come upon them by the way”. The kinship goes back to Jacob and Esau, “Esau, who is Edom” (Genesis 36:1).

The message compresses the history of Genesis and Exodus into a single sentence: fathers went down, dwelt a long time, were ill-treated. “Vexed” is ra’a, to do evil to, the treatment Edom is asked not to add to.

“Sent an angel” uses malakh, messenger, the same word as the “messengers” Moses sends to Edom in verse 14. Kadesh is called “a city” here, the only time Numbers gives it that name, on the very edge of Edom’s land.

The king’s highway is the ancient road along the plateau east of the Jordan and Dead Sea, from the Gulf of Aqaba toward Damascus. Deuteronomy 2:27 makes the same promise to Sihon: “I will neither turn unto the right hand nor to the left.”

Edom answers in the singular, “by me”, a nation speaking as one man. The threat of the sword recalls Isaac’s word to Esau in Genesis 27:40: “by thy sword shalt thou live”.

“High way” here is mesillah, a built-up road, not the derekh of verse 17. “Without doing any thing else” is literally “it is nothing”: let me only pass through on foot. The offer to pay for water goes beyond the first request.

“Thou shalt not go through” is two words in Hebrew, lo taavor. “A strong hand” is the phrase used of the LORD’s hand against Pharaoh (Exodus 6:1); here it is Edom’s.

Deuteronomy 2:4–8 gives the reason Israel did not fight: the LORD told them not to meddle with the sons of Esau, “for I will not give you of their land”. Deuteronomy 23:7 later commands, “Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother.”

Mount Hor is traditionally Jebel Harun near Petra, where a shrine to Aaron stands, though that lies deep inside Edom. Many prefer Jebel Madurah, northeast of Kadesh, which fits a mountain on Edom’s edge.

“Coast” means border, the edge of a territory, not the sea. This is the last time in Numbers that the LORD speaks to Moses and Aaron together; after Aaron’s death, speech is given to Moses and Eleazar (26:1).

“Gathered unto his people” is the phrase used of Abraham (Genesis 25:8) and of Jacob (49:33), joined to the fathers in death. “Ye rebelled” is meritem, from marah, the word Moses threw at the people in verse 10.

Eleazar is Aaron’s elder surviving son; Nadab and Abihu died at the strange fire (Leviticus 10:1–2), and Ithamar, the youngest, is passed over. The mountain is to be climbed by three men of one family.

The garments are those of Exodus 28, made “for glory and for beauty” (28:2). Leviticus 21:10 defines the high priest as the one “that is consecrated to put on the garments”, so to put them on Eleazar is to make him what Aaron was.

Deuteronomy 10:6 places Aaron’s death at Mosera and adds, “Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead”. Mosera is usually taken as the district at the foot of Mount Hor.

Numbers 33:38–39 gives the death a full date, the first day of the fifth month of the fortieth year, and Aaron’s age, a hundred and twenty-three. Few deaths in the Law are fixed so exactly.

“Saw that Aaron was dead” may mean they saw Moses and Eleazar come down without him, with Eleazar in his garments. Thirty days is the mourning later given to Moses himself (Deuteronomy 34:8).