Numbers 20: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel arrives at the Wilderness of Zin and camps at Kadesh, where Miriam dies. When the people have no water and quarrel with Moses and Aaron, God tells Moses to speak to a rock; Moses strikes it twice instead, and God tells Moses and Aaron that neither of them will bring the people into the promised land. Edom refuses to let Israel pass through its territory, so Israel turns away, and at Mount Hor Aaron's priestly garments are transferred to his son Eleazar and Aaron dies there.

Claim by Claim

1. 20:1
   • The children of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month.
   • The people stayed in Kadesh.
   • Miriam died in Kadesh.
   • Miriam was buried in Kadesh.
2. 20:2
   • There was no water for the congregation.
   • The congregation assembled against Moses and Aaron.
3. 20:3
   • The people quarreled with Moses.
   • The people said they wished they had died when their brothers died before the LORD.
4. 20:4
   • The people asked Moses and Aaron why they had brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness.
   • The people said the result would be that they and their livestock would die there.
5. 20:5
   • The people asked why Moses and Aaron had brought them up out of Egypt.
   • The people said they had been brought to an evil place.
   • The people said the place had no seed, figs, vines, or pomegranates.
   • The people said there was no water to drink.
6. 20:6
   • Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting.
   • Moses and Aaron fell on their faces.
   • The glory of the LORD appeared to Moses and Aaron.
7. 20:7
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
8. 20:8
   • The LORD told Moses to take the staff.
   • The LORD told Moses to gather the congregation, he and Aaron his brother.
   • The LORD told Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock before the eyes of the congregation.
   • The LORD said the rock would give its water.
   • The LORD said Moses would bring water out of the rock for them.
   • The LORD said Moses would give the congregation and their livestock drink.
9. 20:9
   • Moses took the staff from before the LORD.
   • Moses did as the LORD had commanded him.
10. 20:10
    • Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock.
    • Moses said to them, Listen now, you rebels.
    • Moses asked whether he and Aaron must bring water out of this rock for them.
11. 20:11
    • Moses lifted up his hand.
    • Moses struck the rock twice with his staff.
    • Much water came out.
    • The congregation drank.
    • Their livestock drank.
12. 20:12
    • The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron.
    • The LORD said they did not believe him.
    • The LORD said they did not treat him as holy in the eyes of the children of Israel.
    • The LORD said that therefore they would not bring this assembly into the land he had given them.
13. 20:13
    • These are the waters of Meribah.
    • The children of Israel quarreled with the LORD there.
    • The LORD was shown to be holy among them.
14. 20:14
    • Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom.
    • The message said: thus says your brother Israel.
    • The message said the king of Edom knew all the hardship that had befallen Israel.
15. 20:15
    • The message said their fathers went down to Egypt.
    • The message said they dwelt in Egypt many days.
    • The message said the Egyptians treated them and their fathers badly.
16. 20:16
    • The message said they cried out to the LORD.
    • The message said the LORD heard their voice.
    • The message said the LORD sent a messenger.
    • The message said the LORD brought them out of Egypt.
    • The message said they were now in Kadesh.
    • The message said Kadesh was a city at the edge of Edom's territory.
17. 20:17
    • Israel asked to pass through Edom's land.
    • Israel said they would not pass through field or vineyard.
    • Israel said they would not drink water from a well.
    • Israel said they would go by the king's highway.
    • Israel said they would not turn to the right or the left until they had passed Edom's border.
18. 20:18
    • Edom said to Israel that they would not pass through his land.
    • Edom said that otherwise he would come out against them with the sword.
19. 20:19
    • The children of Israel said they would go up by the highway.
    • The children of Israel said that if they and their livestock drank Edom's water, they would pay its price.
    • The children of Israel said it was nothing, and asked only to pass through on foot.
20. 20:20
    • Edom said Israel would not pass through.
    • Edom came out against Israel with many people.
    • Edom came out with a strong hand.
21. 20:21
    • Edom refused to let Israel pass through his territory.
    • Israel turned away from Edom.
22. 20:22
    • They journeyed from Kadesh.
    • The children of Israel, the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.
23. 20:23
    • The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor.
    • Mount Hor was by the border of the land of Edom.
24. 20:24
    • The LORD said Aaron would be gathered to his people.
    • The LORD said Aaron would not enter the land he had given to the children of Israel.
    • The LORD said this was because they rebelled against his word at the waters of Meribah.
25. 20:25
    • The LORD told Moses to take Aaron and Eleazar his son.
    • The LORD told Moses to bring them up Mount Hor.
26. 20:26
    • The LORD told Moses to strip Aaron of his garments.
    • The LORD told Moses to put the garments on Eleazar his son.
    • The LORD said Aaron would be gathered to his people.
    • The LORD said Aaron would die there.
27. 20:27
    • Moses did as the LORD commanded.
    • They went up Mount Hor in the sight of the whole congregation.
28. 20:28
    • Moses stripped Aaron of his garments.
    • Moses put the garments on Eleazar his son.
    • Aaron died there on the top of the mountain.
    • Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.
29. 20:29
    • The whole congregation saw that Aaron was dead.
    • All the house of Israel mourned for Aaron thirty days.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1

The Hebrew gives a month but no year, and the narrative has jumped forward: the previous chapters cover the beginning of the wilderness period, and this chapter picks up near its end, close to forty years later. "Zin" is a district south of Canaan; it is a different word from the "Sin" of Exodus. Kadesh (also called Kadesh-barnea) was an oasis settlement on the southern edge of Canaan, the base from which the spies had earlier been sent out. Miriam is the sister of Moses and Aaron, named as a prophet in Exodus 15.

20:2

Moses was the leader who brought the people out of Egypt. Aaron was his brother. Aaron was the priest, the man who did God's special work at the tent.

20:3

"Our relatives who died in front of the LORD" points back to the Israelites killed in earlier rebellions during the wilderness years, the sudden deaths described in Numbers 11, 14 and 16. The complaint is that a quick death then would have been better than dying of thirst now.

20:4

"Cattle" in the King James means livestock of any kind: sheep, goats, donkeys and oxen together, not only cows.

20:5

Grain, figs, grapevines and pomegranates are the standard shorthand in Hebrew for settled, cultivated, well-watered farmland. Listing all four and then saying none of them are here is a way of saying the place cannot support human life at all.

20:6

The tent of meeting was the portable sanctuary the Israelites carried and set up at the center of the camp; it is the same structure older translations call the tabernacle. "The glory of the LORD" translates a Hebrew phrase for a visible blaze of light or cloud understood as God's presence made perceptible, not a description of God's character.

20:8

"The staff" is a specific one, kept stored in the sanctuary "in front of the LORD" (verse 9); Numbers 17 describes Aaron's staff being placed there after it sprouted. The instruction is to speak to the rock, not to strike it, which matters for what happens in verse 11.

20:10

The Hebrew is "must we bring water out," using "we" of Moses and Aaron. Readers and translators have long disagreed about exactly what Moses does wrong here, striking the rock instead of speaking to it, hitting it twice, the anger, the word "we," or the insult "you rebels." The text itself does not say; verse 12 gives only a general charge.

20:11

Striking a rock was what Moses had been told to do the first time Israel ran out of water, at Rephidim in Exodus 17. This time the instruction was different, and he did what had worked before instead.

20:12

"To treat me as holy" renders a Hebrew verb meaning to set apart as sacred, to publicly acknowledge as belonging to a different order from ordinary things. The complaint is about how Moses and Aaron handled the moment in front of the watching people, not about a private belief.

20:13

Meribah means "quarrelling" or "contention" in Hebrew, and the verse is a wordplay: the place is called Quarreling because the people quarreled there. The second half uses the same root as "holy" in verse 12. A different water-from-a-rock episode, earlier and at a different place, is also named Meribah in Exodus 17.

20:14

Edom was the kingdom in the highlands southeast of the Dead Sea. Calling its king "your brother" is not flattery: Edomites were reckoned as descendants of Esau, and Israelites as descendants of Esau's twin brother Jacob, who was also named Israel. The message is framed as one clan head addressing a kinsman, which carries an expectation of hospitality.

20:15

Jacob's family had moved to Egypt long before, during a famine, when there was food in Egypt and none at home. Their descendants stayed and were finally forced into slavery there.

20:16

The Hebrew word translated "angel" simply means "messenger", a being or person sent on someone's behalf. Whether the sender's representative here is understood as heavenly or human, the point in a diplomatic letter is the claim of powerful backing.

20:17

The King's Highway was a real, named trade route running north–south through the highlands east of the Jordan, used for caravan traffic. The promise not to enter fields or vineyards or use the wells is the standard undertaking of a passing army or migrating group: those were the resources a large body of people and livestock would otherwise strip.

20:19

"It is nothing" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning roughly "it is a trivial matter" or "there will be no trouble", the sense is that Israel is asking for something small and costless. "On foot" means simply passing straight through without stopping or settling.

20:20

"With a strong hand" is a Hebrew idiom for overwhelming armed force. Edom answers a diplomatic request with a military deployment on its border.

20:21

Refusing passage forced Israel to detour the long way around Edom's territory to the south and east, adding a considerable march to the journey.

20:22

Mount Hor was a mountain near the edge of Edom's land.

20:24

"Gathered to his people" is the standard Hebrew way of speaking of death, drawn from the practice of burying family members together in a shared tomb so that the dead literally joined their ancestors. It is used of a person's death without specifying anything about what follows it.

20:26

The priestly clothing was official regalia, not personal property: an elaborate set of garments described in Exodus 28 that marked the one man who held the office of chief priest. Transferring them from father to son on the mountain is the act that makes Eleazar chief priest in Aaron's place, an installation ceremony, done in public view (verse 27) so that everyone has seen the succession.

20:29

Thirty days was the full formal mourning period reserved for a figure of the first rank; the same length is recorded later for Moses. Ordinary mourning was seven days.