Numbers 33: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses records the list of camping places the Israelites used from the day they left Egypt until they reached the plains of Moab across from Jericho. The list runs from Rameses through the Red Sea, Sinai, and Kadesh, and it includes the note that Aaron died on Mount Hor in the fortieth year, at age 123. At the end, the LORD speaks to Moses on the plains of Moab and tells the people what to do when they cross the Jordan: drive out the people living in Canaan, destroy their images and their worship sites, and divide the land by lot among the tribes. He adds that any inhabitants they leave in place will become a lasting trouble to them, and that he will then do to Israel what he had planned to do to those nations.

Claim by Claim

1. 33:1
   • These are the stages of the journey of the children of Israel.
   • The children of Israel went out from the land of Egypt.
   • They went out arranged by their hosts.
   • They went out under the direction of Moses and Aaron.
2. 33:2
   • Moses wrote down their starting points stage by stage.
   • Moses wrote them at the command of the LORD.
   • These are their stages listed by their starting points.
3. 33:3
   • They set out from Rameses in the first month.
   • They set out on the fifteenth day of the first month.
   • They set out on the day after the Passover.
   • The children of Israel went out with a high hand.
   • They went out in the sight of all the Egyptians.
4. 33:4
   • The Egyptians were burying all their firstborn.
   • The LORD had struck down the firstborn among them.
   • The LORD executed judgments on the gods of the Egyptians.
5. 33:5
   • The children of Israel set out from Rameses.
   • They camped at Succoth.
6. 33:6
   • They set out from Succoth.
   • They camped at Etham.
   • Etham is at the edge of the wilderness.
7. 33:7
   • They set out from Etham.
   • They turned back to Pi-hahiroth.
   • Pi-hahiroth is opposite Baal-zephon.
   • They camped before Migdol.
8. 33:8
   • They set out from before Pi-hahiroth.
   • They passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness.
   • They went a three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham.
   • They camped at Marah.
9. 33:9
   • They set out from Marah.
   • They came to Elim.
   • In Elim there were twelve springs of water.
   • In Elim there were seventy palm trees.
   • They camped there.
10. 33:10
    • They set out from Elim.
    • They camped by the Sea of Reeds.
11. 33:11
    • They set out from the Sea of Reeds.
    • They camped in the wilderness of Sin.
12. 33:12
    • They set out from the wilderness of Sin.
    • They camped at Dophkah.
13. 33:13
    • They set out from Dophkah.
    • They camped at Alush.
14. 33:14
    • They set out from Alush.
    • They camped at Rephidim.
    • There was no water there for the people to drink.
15. 33:15
    • They set out from Rephidim.
    • They camped in the wilderness of Sinai.
16. 33:16
    • They set out from the wilderness of Sinai.
    • They camped at Kibroth-hattaavah.
17. 33:17
    • They set out from Kibroth-hattaavah.
    • They camped at Hazeroth.
18. 33:18
    • They set out from Hazeroth.
    • They camped at Rithmah.
19. 33:19
    • They set out from Rithmah.
    • They camped at Rimmon-perez.
20. 33:20
    • They set out from Rimmon-perez.
    • They camped at Libnah.
21. 33:21
    • They set out from Libnah.
    • They camped at Rissah.
22. 33:22
    • They set out from Rissah.
    • They camped at Kehelathah.
23. 33:23
    • They set out from Kehelathah.
    • They camped at Mount Shepher.
24. 33:24
    • They set out from Mount Shepher.
    • They camped at Haradah.
25. 33:25
    • They set out from Haradah.
    • They camped at Makheloth.
26. 33:26
    • They set out from Makheloth.
    • They camped at Tahath.
27. 33:27
    • They set out from Tahath.
    • They camped at Terah.
28. 33:28
    • They set out from Terah.
    • They camped at Mithkah.
29. 33:29
    • They set out from Mithkah.
    • They camped at Hashmonah.
30. 33:30
    • They set out from Hashmonah.
    • They camped at Moseroth.
31. 33:31
    • They set out from Moseroth.
    • They camped at Bene-jaakan.
32. 33:32
    • They set out from Bene-jaakan.
    • They camped at Hor-haggidgad.
33. 33:33
    • They set out from Hor-haggidgad.
    • They camped at Jotbathah.
34. 33:34
    • They set out from Jotbathah.
    • They camped at Abronah.
35. 33:35
    • They set out from Abronah.
    • They camped at Ezion-geber.
36. 33:36
    • They set out from Ezion-geber.
    • They camped in the wilderness of Zin.
    • The wilderness of Zin is Kadesh.
37. 33:37
    • They set out from Kadesh.
    • They camped at Mount Hor.
    • Mount Hor is at the edge of the land of Edom.
38. 33:38
    • Aaron the priest went up Mount Hor.
    • He went up at the command of the LORD.
    • Aaron died there.
    • He died in the fortieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt.
    • He died in the fifth month, on the first day of the month.
39. 33:39
    • Aaron was a hundred and twenty-three years old when he died.
    • He died on Mount Hor.
40. 33:40
    • The Canaanite king of Arad heard that the children of Israel were coming.
    • That king dwelt in the Negev, in the land of Canaan.
41. 33:41
    • They set out from Mount Hor.
    • They camped at Zalmonah.
42. 33:42
    • They set out from Zalmonah.
    • They camped at Punon.
43. 33:43
    • They set out from Punon.
    • They camped at Oboth.
44. 33:44
    • They set out from Oboth.
    • They camped at Iye-abarim.
    • Iye-abarim is on the border of Moab.
45. 33:45
    • They set out from Iyim.
    • They camped at Dibon-gad.
46. 33:46
    • They set out from Dibon-gad.
    • They camped at Almon-diblathaim.
47. 33:47
    • They set out from Almon-diblathaim.
    • They camped in the mountains of Abarim.
    • The mountains of Abarim are before Nebo.
48. 33:48
    • They set out from the mountains of Abarim.
    • They camped in the plains of Moab.
    • The plains of Moab are by the Jordan across from Jericho.
49. 33:49
    • They camped by the Jordan.
    • Their camp stretched from Beth-jeshimoth to Abel-shittim.
    • This camp was in the plains of Moab.
50. 33:50
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
    • He spoke in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.
51. 33:51
    • The LORD told Moses to speak to the children of Israel and say to them:
    • You are crossing over the Jordan into the land of Canaan.
52. 33:52
    • You shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you.
    • You shall destroy all their carved figures.
    • You shall destroy all their cast metal images.
    • You shall demolish all their high places.
53. 33:53
    • You shall take possession of the land.
    • You shall dwell in it.
    • The LORD says he has given them the land to possess it.
54. 33:54
    • You shall apportion the land as an inheritance by lot according to your families.
    • To the larger group you shall give a larger inheritance.
    • To the smaller group you shall give a smaller inheritance.
    • Wherever the lot falls to a man, that shall be his.
    • You shall receive your inheritance according to the tribes of your fathers.
55. 33:55
    • If you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain will be barbs in your eyes.
    • Those you let remain will be thorns in your sides.
    • They will harass you in the land where you dwell.
56. 33:56
    • The LORD says he will do to you what he intended to do to them.

Words Worth Explaining

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

33:1

"Group by group" translates a Hebrew word for organized units, the same word used of an army on the march; the picture is of ordered ranks rather than a crowd of escapees. What follows is an itinerary, a formal list of stopping places, a kind of record also kept for Egyptian and Assyrian military campaigns.

33:2

Kings in the ancient Near East kept itinerary lists recording each stop of a military campaign, place by place. This chapter is that kind of document, covering about forty years and roughly forty camps, and much of it repeats places described in Exodus and earlier in Numbers.

33:3

Rameses was a city in the eastern Nile delta; Exodus names it as one of the storage cities built by Israelite forced labor. The "first month" is the month later called Abib or Nisan, falling in our March–April. The Passover was the meal eaten on the night before the departure from Egypt. Behind "marched out boldly" is the Hebrew idiom "with a high hand", openly and defiantly, in plain sight, rather than slipping away unnoticed.

33:4

The deaths of the firstborn were the last of the ten plagues on Egypt. Egypt's gods were closely identified with the forces the plagues struck (the Nile, the sun, livestock, human fertility) and the phrase "passed sentence" is courtroom language, presenting the plagues as a verdict handed down against those gods.

33:6

"Desert" here translates a word meaning open, uncultivated country used for grazing, scrubland, not necessarily sand dunes.

33:7

Baalzephon means "Baal of the north," naming the site after a Canaanite storm god worshiped by sailors along that coast. Migdol is the Hebrew form of an Egyptian word for a watchtower or frontier fort; Egypt maintained a line of them along its eastern border.

33:8

"The sea" is the crossing told at length in Exodus 14. Marah means "bitter," a name given because the water found there could not be drunk.

33:9

Elim was an oasis; twelve springs and seventy palm trees mark it as an unusually good water source in that country, worth recording.

33:10

The Hebrew name, yam suph, means literally "sea of reeds." It is used in the Bible of the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba as well as of marshy lakes, so exactly which water is meant in any given verse is disputed.

33:11

The desert of Sin has no connection with the English word "sin"; it is simply a place name. It is also a different region from the desert of Zin mentioned in verse 36, despite the similar spelling in English.

33:14

Rephidim is where the people quarreled bitterly with Moses over the lack of water, the incident told in Exodus 17.

33:15

Sinai is the mountain where God gave Israel his rules. The Ten Commandments were given there.

33:16

Kibrothhattaavah means "the graves of craving." The place was named for the burials made there after the people demanded meat instead of manna (Numbers 11).

33:17

Hazeroth is where Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses over his leadership and his marriage, and Miriam was struck with a skin disease for seven days (Numbers 12).

33:18

Most of the places in this part of the list cannot be found on a map today. Their names were remembered, but the exact spots have been lost over the centuries.

33:31

Benejaakan means "sons of Jaakan", a clan name used as the name of the place where that clan lived.

33:36

Kadesh, also called Kadesh-barnea, was a large oasis on the southern edge of Canaan. It served as Israel's base for most of the thirty-eight years between leaving Sinai and moving toward Moab, which is why the long list of camps in verses 18–35 covers so much time.

33:37

Edom was the territory south and east of the Dead Sea, held by people reckoned as descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob, so a neighboring nation counted as kin.

33:38

Aaron was Moses' elder brother and the first of Israel's priests. The fifth month falls in our July–August. The dating here is unusually precise: it is one of only a handful of exact dates given in the whole wilderness account.

33:39

The King James writes the number as "an hundred and twenty and three." That is simply how people wrote 123 in English in 1611.

33:40

"Canaanite" is a general term for the settled peoples living in the land before Israel. Arad was a town in the Negev, the dry country south of Canaan proper. This verse interrupts the list of camps; the encounter with Arad's king is told in Numbers 21:1–3.

33:44

Ijeabarim means "ruins of Abarim." Verse 45 calls the same place by its short form, Iim, the two names are one place, not two.

33:45

Iyim is a shortened form of Iye-abarim in the verse before. It is the same place, not a new one; the list simply uses the short name.

33:47

Abarim is the ridge of high ground east of the Dead Sea, overlooking the Jordan valley. Nebo is one of its peaks, the point from which Moses later looked out over the land he would not enter (Deuteronomy 34).

33:48

The "flat land of Moab" is the level ground in the Jordan valley just north of the Dead Sea, on the eastern bank. Moab was a kingdom east of the Dead Sea whose people, like Edom's, were reckoned as distant relatives of Israel.

33:49

The two places named mark the ends of the camp, several miles apart along the river; the detail is a way of indicating how large the encampment was. Abelshittim means "meadow of the acacias."

33:52

"Carved images" translates a word for figured or engraved stones, either stone idols or carved cult markers. Metal idols were cast in a mold, an expensive process. A "high place" was an open-air worship site, usually on a hilltop or a built-up platform, with an altar and upright standing stones; such sites were the ordinary form of local worship throughout Canaan.

33:54

Casting lots meant assigning shares by chance, much like drawing straws, a standard ancient method of dividing property without favoritism or dispute. "Inheritance" here does not mean money left at death but a permanent family holding of land, passed down the generations and not meant to be sold away for good.

33:55

"Splinters in your eyes and thorns in your sides" is a proverbial expression, not a prediction of any specific injury: it describes a small irritation that cannot be got rid of and never stops hurting.

33:56

"As I thought to do unto them" uses "thought" in its older sense of planned or intended, not merely considered. The threat is that the punishment marked out for the inhabitants of the land would fall on Israel instead.