Bible Commentaries
Numbers 33

Verses 37-49

VII

FROM KADESH-BARNEA TO MOAB

Numbers 20-22, Numbers 33:37-49; Deuteronomy 2:1-3:11

Historically Numbers 21-22 of this book will carry you to the end of the book, describing the journey from Kadesh to the Jordan. But it leaves out the great incident about Balaam which occupies several chapters. In connection with Numbers 20-22, study the following scriptures: Numbers 33:37-49 the itinerary chapter commencing at Numbers 33:37-49, Deuteronomy 2:1-3:11. In many respects those two chapters give a more intelligent statement than this section in Numbers.

The great incidents of this section are the assembling at Kadesh in the fortieth year, the death of Miriam, the sin of Moses that excluded him from the Promised Land, the fight waged on them by Arad the Canaanite, the death of Aaron at Mount Hor, the sin of the people where they were punished by fiery serpents and saved by the brazen serpent, the digging of a well at another station by the princes of Israel using their sticks, and a most beautiful spring bubbling up, a song on that water as it bubbled up recorded in the old book of the Wars of Jehovah which is referred to, and the war with Sihon and Og.

It is the fortieth year and the first month of that year that they are reassembled by divine command at Kadesh-barnea. Before I proceed with this discussion, I want us to take a backward glance at that thirty-eight years of silence. I told you that in that thirty-eight years they did not keep up the ordinance of circumcision. In the book of Joshua, as soon as they passed the river Jordan, the covenant was renewed and Joshua circumcised all of those who had not been circumcised in the wilderness. From Amos 5 and Acts 7, we learn that all that thirty-eight years they had made no sacrifices. We learn that in that time they worshiped idols. They were under the curse of God, and he did not count the time; there was total suspension of the covenant. But during that time the Levites stayed around the ark of the covenant and kept up worship. The places mentioned in Numbers 33 constitute a record of the stopping places of the ark as they moved it.

The command goes out that since the penalty is nearly paid – and we will find Just where it stops – they must reassemble at the place where they broke the covenant. Miriam, who had lived through that period of thirty-eight years dies just when she gets back to the place where she had committed her sin. She is buried and that is the end of Miriam. Those people come back there sore, although it is a new generation, and the first thing they did was to commit another sin. The water at Kadesh-barnea was not sufficient for three millions of people, and striking it at a dry time, they began to make their old complaints. Moses takes the case to God and God commands him to gather them together in a great congregation, and in their sight, with staff in hand, the staff with which he had wrought all the miracles of the past years, to speak to the rock and the water would flow out and God would begin again to supply the people. Moses was very mad. He had been a meek and patient man. He had had charge of that people and had their burden on his shoulders for thirty-nine years. The description of the sin that he committed is expressed in the following scriptures: Numbers 20:10-11; Numbers 27:14; Deuteronomy 1:37; Deuteronomy 3:26-27; Psalms 106:33.

One of the questions on Numbers will be for you to analyze the sin of Moses, and as I am not going to give you that analysis, it is very important that you remember those passages of Scripture. Now, God told Moses to speak to the rock, but, instead of speaking, Moses struck the rock. The other time God had commanded him to strike the rock, which refers, first, to the fact that Christ must be smitten to supply the needs of his people. But the next time he must not be smitten. You must speak, and by petition draw the supplies of a Christian. But Moses struck twice. He was very mad and seemed to attribute the power to himself. He did not sanctify God in this matter, but sanctified himself. The psalmist says that the sin of the people brought ill to Moses and caused him to speak unadvisedly with his lips. Just before his death, recorded in Deuteronomy, Moses says, "For your sake I was led into this sin which kept me from entering the Holy Land which you are to enter."

The next question in order of time is to turn to Numbers 21 and read three verses which tell us about the Canaanite king, Arad. This king thought that they were going to repeat their old experiment of trying to enter the Promised Land on the south, and he came out and fought them at the very place where they had been defeated before, but this time he got an awful thrashing. He was outlawed and that ban of outlawry was fulfilled in the days of Joshua.

While at Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to two nations. He wanted to get around on the Jordan River side without having to make a long circuit. There were only two ways, one through the Amorite country and the other by going through the Edom country. Moses sent a very respectful communication to the king of Edom, calling him Brother Edom, or Esau, and saying, "Your brother Jacob desires to pass through your country to get to his own land, and we will promise you to stick to the highways and not scatter about, and we will take nothing without paying your own price for it." We learn from Deuteronomy that Moses sent a similar message to Moab, the descendants of Lot, as he would have to go through the Mount Seir country first and Moab next. And he said to the Moabites, "The descendants of Abraham would say to the descendants of Lot, Let your cousins pass through your country." But as far as Edom was concerned, they assembled an army to block the way.

What follows next? Kadesh-barnea is Just south of Hebron. The children of Israel are at Kadesh and they want to get around on the Jordan side through Edom and Moab, their kinsfolk. If Moab and Edom refuse, they have to make a long circuit around. Moab and Edom did refuse and God would not permit them to force their way through by war, because they are kinspeople. So they have to move south through the Arabah, that great valley through which the Jordan doubtless used to flow. When they stopped at Mount Hor in the edge of the country, Aaron dies. The account is very piteous. In the main, he has been a remarkably good man. He has committed some sins. He joined Moses in the sin which excluded him from the Promised Land. God commands Moses to take Aaron up on that bare mountain and to take his sons with him. They strip off the priestly robes and put them on Eleazar, who is to become high priest. And there Aaron dies. I have often thought about that lonely grave. There is a tradition about that mountain now. Almost any guide will volunteer to take you to Aaron’s grave when you go there now.

Then they left Mount Hor and made a day’s march or two to a place called Zaimona, going right down that dry Arabah. The people complained again, and God’s punishment was to send fiery serpents among them. Once a little boy asked me to tell him a story about snakes. And I said, "Once upon a time there was a great camp of three million people in their tents in a dry valley, and they sinned against God, and in the night from every direction over the desert came snakes, great snakes with red splotches on them and much more deadly than rattlesnakes. And in the night whoever moved was bitten by the snakes. The children were crying out all night that they had been bitten by snakes, and the people died and kept dying, and the snakes kept biting, until finally God told the leader of that camp that if he would put brass into a furnace and mold a big snake and put it on a pole, that everybody who looked at it would be healed, and as the sun shone on that brazen serpent, it made it so very conspicuous that it could be seen all over that camp. A mother would hear about that brazen serpent and would say to her dying boy, all twisted with agony and pain, ’O son, I will turn you over so you can see. Now just look yonder at that brazen serpent,’ and he would shut his eyes and say, ‘I will not look,’ and then die. They would come to where a man was bitten, and find him cursing and swearing. They would all gather around him and his wife would say to him, ’O husband, here are your brothers and sisters and your friends and one of your children. They have all been bitten and they looked and lived. Will you not look and live too?’ But he shuts his eyes and dies. ’But it came to pass whosoever looked was healed.’ " And the little fellow was so well pleased with the story that he asked where I had read it and I told him in the Bible, the very last place he expected to find a good story.

Now, there was a converted Jew, Joseph Frey, who became a great expounder of the Old Testament types of Christ. He took this text in John, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life." Preachers should all get Joseph Frey’s Old Testament Types. Fairbairn has a book on "Typology" but not so good a book as Frey’s.

I am going to call your attention to a thought that you will find nowhere else in the world. You remember that scapegoat on the great day of atonement that was to be given to Azazel and to pass under the power of the evil spirit. So Jesus on the cross passed under the power of the evil spirit. Now, that type is here. This serpent represents Jesus lifted up on the cross and though the serpent bit him, he crushed the serpent’s head.

When they get to Amah, Numbers 21:13, here you find the reference to that old book. "The Wars of Jehovah." "From thence they Journeyed to Beer." That is a very dry place. When God told Moses to supply the people with water, the princes digged in the ground with their staves and a fresh spring bubbled out. They come up now even with the mouth of the Jordan. Moses stands on the top of Mount Nebo and looks over the Promised Land.

Moses sent a messenger to the Amorites and they despised the messenger and prepared for war. But they are conquered and their country taken. Then they come to Bashan. Deuteronomy tells us how big Og, the king of the country, was. Counting a cubit as a foot and a half, his iron bedstead was thirteen and a half feet long, and I could easily lie down upon it full-length crosswise.

That finishes this section. What is left of the book is to pick up some incidents that occurred, particularly the incident of Balaam.

QUESTIONS

1. The period of wandering – How long, their relation to the covenant, their worship, the Levites, God’s mercies to them during this period and why?

2. When did they assemble back at Kadesh-barnea?

3. What noted person dies here?

4. What sin was committed here by the new generation and God’s provision for their need?

5. Collate the scriptures on the sin of Moses and give the character of his sin.

6. Give account of the attack on Israel by the Canaanites; their doom

7. What effort did Moses make to go a direct route to the Jordan?

8. Trace their journey from Kadesh-barnea to Mount Hor. What noted person dies here, and who takes his place?

9. What is Israel’s next sin? The punishment? What New Testament reference to the Brazen Serpent? In what particular is the Brazen Serpent a type of Christ?

10. What books commended on Old Testament types?

11. What lost book is here quoted from?

12. Recite the incident of the Well and the Song.

13. Give an account of the fall of Sihon and another song.

14. Give an account of the fall of Bashan.