Numbers 33:20

33:1-49 This is a brief review of the travels of the children of Israel through the wilderness. It is a memorable history. In their travels towards Canaan they were continually on the remove. Such is our state in this world; we have here no continuing city, and all our removes in this world are but from one part a desert to another. They were led to and fro, forward and backward, yet were all the while under the direction of the pillar of cloud and fire. God led them about, yet led them the right way. The way God takes in bringing his people to himself is always the best way, though it does not always seem to us the nearest way. Former events are mentioned. Thus we ought to keep in mind the providences of God concerning us and families, us and our land, and the many instances of that Divine care which has led us, and fed us, and kept us all our days hitherto. Few periods of our lives can be thought upon, without reminding us of the Lord's goodness, and our own ingratitude and disobedience: his kindness leaves us without excuse for our sins. We could not wish to travel over again the stages we have passed, unless we could hope, by the grace of God, to shun the sins we then committed, and to embrace such opportunities of doing good as we have let slip. Soon will our wanderings end, and our eternal state be fixed beyond recall; how important then is the present moment! Happy are those whom the Lord now guides with his counsel, and will at length receive to his glory.

To this happiness the gospel calls us. Behold now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Let sinners seize the opportunity, and flee for refuge to the hope set before them. Let us redeem our time, to glorify God and serve our generation; and he will carry us safely through all, to his eternal kingdom.

And they departed from Rithmah, and pitched at Rimmonparez. Six miles from Rithmah, and then from Rimmon to Libnah, which was six miles also; and from thence to Rissah, which was six miles more; and from Rissah to, Kehelathah, which was the same number of miles; and from thence to Shapher, which was six miles also; and then they came to Haradah, which was four miles from thence; the next remove was to Makheloth, which was four miles and a half from the last place; then they went to Tahath, which was four miles more; and from thence to Tarah, which also was four miles; the next place they came to was Mithcah, four miles from Tarah; and then to Hashmonah, which was eight miles more.

Verse 20. - Libnah. Hebrew לִבְנָה ("whiteness") may perhaps be the same as the Laban ( לָבָן , "white") mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:1 . So many places, however, in that region are distinguished by the dazzling whiteness of their limestone cliffs that the identification is quite uncertain. The site of this, as of the next eight stations, is indeed utterly unknown; and the guesses which are founded on the partial and probably accidental similarity of some modern names (themselves differently pronounced by different travelers) are utterly worthless. Of these eight names, Kehelathah and Makheloth seem to be derived from קָהָל , "an assembling," and thus give some slight support to the supposition that during the thirty-eight years the people were scattered abroad, and only assembled from time to time in one place. Rissah is variously interpreted "heap of ruins," or "dew;" Shapher means "fair," or "splendid;" Haradah, or Charadah, is "terror," or "trembling" (cf. 1 Samuel 14:15 ); Tahath is a "going down," or "depression;" Tarah is "turning," or "delay;" Mithcah signifies "sweetness," and may be compared (in an opposite sense) to Marah. Numbers 33:20

Rimmon-parez - Or rather Rimmon-perez, i. e., "Rimmon (i. e., the Pomegranate) of the Breach." It may have been here that the sedition of Korah occurred. Verse 19-36 The stations named are those visited during the years of penal wandering. The determination of their positions is, in many cases, difficult, because during this period there was no definite line of march pursued. But it is probable that the Israelites during this period did not overstep the boundaries of the wilderness of Paran (as defined in Numbers 10:12), except to pass along the adjoining valley of the Arabah; while the tabernacle and organized camp moved about from place to place among them (compare Numbers 20:1). Rissah, Haradah, and Tahath are probably the same as Rasa, Aradeh, and Elthi of the Roman tables. The position of Hashmonah (Heshmon in Joshua 15:27) in the Azazimeh mountains points out the road followed by the children of Israel to be that which skirts the southwestern extremity of Jebel Magrah.

19. Rimmon-parez, or Rimmon—a city of Judah and Simeon (Jos 15:32); Libnah, so called from its white poplars (Jos 10:29), or, as some think, a white hill between Kadesh and Gaza (Jos 10:29); Rissah (El-arish); mount Shapher (Cassius); Moseroth, adjacent to mount Hor, in Wady Mousa. Ezion-geber, near Akaba, a seaport on the western shore of the Elanitic gulf; Wilderness of Zin, on the east side of the peninsula of Sinai; Punon, in the rocky ravines of mount Hor and famous for the mines and quarries in its vicinity as well as for its fruit trees, now Tafyle, on the border of Edom; Abarim, a ridge of rugged hills northwest of the Arnon—the part called Nebo was one of its highest peaks—opposite Jericho. (See on [105]De 10:6).

In vv. 16-36 there follow twenty-one names of places where the Israelites encamped from the time that they left the wilderness of Sinai till they encamped in the wilderness of Zin, i.e., Kadesh. The description of the latter as "the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh," which agrees almost word for word with Numbers 20:1 , and still more the agreement of the places mentioned in Numbers 33:37-49 , as the encampments of Israel after leaving Kadesh till their arrival in the steppes of Moab, with the march of the people in the fortieth year as described in Numbers 20:22-22:1 , put it beyond all doubt that the encampment in the wilderness of Zin, i.e., Kadesh ( Numbers 33:36 ), is to be understood as referring to the second arrival in Kadesh after the expiration of the thirty-eight years of wandering in the desert to which the congregation had been condemned. Consequently the twenty-one names in vv. 16-36 contain not only the places of encampment at which the Israelites encamped in the second year of their march from Sinai to the desert of Paran at Kadesh, whence the spies were despatched into Canaan, but also those in which they encamped for a longer period during the thirty-eight years of punishment in the wilderness. This view is still further confirmed by the fact that the two first of the stations named after the departure from the wilderness of Sinai, viz., Kibroth-hattaavah and Hazeroth, agree with those named in the historical account in Numbers 11:34 and Numbers 11:35 .

Now if, according to Numbers 12:16 , when the people left Hazeroth, they encamped in the desert of Paran, and despatched the spies thence out of the desert of Zin ( Numbers 13:21 ), who returned to the congregation after forty days "into the desert of Paran to Kadesh" ( Numbers 13:26 ), it is as natural as it well can be to seek for this place of encampment in the desert of Paran or Zin at Kadesh under the name of Rithmah, which follows Hazeroth in the present list ( Numbers 33:18 ). This natural supposition reaches the highest degree of probability, from the fact that, in the historical account, the place of encampment, from which the sending out of the spies took place, is described in so indefinite a manner as the "desert of Paran," since this name does not belong to a small desert, just capable of holding the camp of the Israelites, but embraces the whole of the large desert plateau which stretches from the central mountains of Horeb in the south to the mountains of the Amorites, which really form part of Canaan, and contains no less than 400 (? 10,000 English) square miles. In this desert the Israelites could only pitch their camp in one particular spot, which is called Rithmah in the list before us; whereas in the historical account the passage is described, according to what the Israelites performed and experienced in this encampment, as near to the southern border of Canaan, and is thus pointed out with sufficient clearness for the purpose of the historical account.