1. Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin, in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.
2. And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.
3. And the people chode with Moses, and spoke, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord!
4. And why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?
5. And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there ally water to drink.
6. And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them.
7. And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
8. Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.
9. And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him.
10. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?
11. And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice; and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.
12. And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
13. This is the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.
1. Then came the children of Israel. In the twenty-third chapter of this book many intermediate stations are mentioned, which are not here referred to: perhaps because, from the time that God compelled them to draw back, they had made no advance for thirty whole years, but had wandered about by circuitous paths. In connecting the history, therefore, in this place he relates that they passed from the desert of Paran to the desert of Sin; because they then began to direct their journey straight towards the land of Canaan, and to advance more closely to it, so as at length to conclude their wanderings. When he tells us that Miriam died here, we may infer from hence that her life was greatly prolonged. It is probable that she was a girl of ten or twelve years of age, when Moses was born, since she was able to provide adroitly for his safety, (Exodus 2:4;) for although her name is not actually given, yet it may be reasonably supposed that she was the person who fetched her mother to nurse the child that had been exposed. She reached the age, then, of about 130 years, 1 an unusual length of life, and especially for a woman.
2. And there was no water for the congregation. We have already seen a similar, though not the same, history. For, when the people had hardly come out of Egypt, they began to rebel in Rephidim on account of the scarcity of water; and now, after thirty-eight years, or thereabouts, a new sedition arose in Kadesh, because there, too, they wanted water. Their first murmuring, indeed, sufficiently showed how great was their depravity and contumacy; for, when God gave them their food from heaven every day, why did they not supplicate Him for water, so that their sustenance might be complete? Yet, not less with foul ingratitude than with impious refractoriness, they assail God with reproaches, and complain that they are deceived and betrayed. But this second rebellion is far worse; for, when they had experienced that it was in God’s power to extract plenty of water from the barren rock, why do they not now implore His aid? why does not that marvelous interference in their behalf recur to their minds? Yet, in their madness, they clamor that they have been more cruelly dealt with than as if they had been swallowed up by the earth, or consumed by fire from heaven, as if there were no remedy for their thirst. Assuredly this was incredible stupidity, designedly, as it were, to shut the gate of God’s grace, and to east themselves into despair. It is true that they rebel against Moses and Aaron; but they direct their complaints like darts against God Himself. They deem it a very great injustice that they had been brought into the desert, as if they had not in their own impious obstinacy themselves preferred the desert to the land of Canaan, and were deserving, therefore, of pining, in want of all things, to death itself. Perversely, then, do they throw the blame, which belongs to themselves alone, upon the ministers of their salvation. With truth, indeed, do they call the place evil and barren; but God would not have wished to keep them imprisoned there, unless they had voluntarily refused the land flowing with milk and honey, after it had been set before their eyes, and an easy entrance to it had been accorded to them under the guidance and authority of God. Thus the Prophet, in Psalm 105, in recounting the history of their redemption, before he descends to the punishments inflicted upon their sins, relates that they were brought forth by God “with joy” and “with gladness.” 2 But, further, taking occasion from the inconvenience they experienced from thirst, they maliciously heap together other complaints. There was no lack of food to satisfy their hunger, and such as was pleasant to the taste; yet they complain exactly as if hunger oppressed them as well as thirst. God daily rained for them food from heaven, which it was mere sport for them to gather; but the ground of their murmuring is that they had not to fatigue themselves with ploughing and sowing. Behold to what senselessness men are driven by preposterous lust, and by contempt of God’s present blessings! The climax of their madness, however, is that they lament their fate in not having been swallowed up with Korah and his companions, or consumed by fire from heaven. They had been overwhelmed with great fear at that melancholy spectacle; and justly so, for God had exhibited a prodigy, terrible throughout all ages. Now they quarrel with Him because His lightnings did not smite them also. Nor do they only lament that they were not destroyed by that particular kind of death, but they willfully provoke God’s vengeance upon their heads, which ought to have terrified them more than a hundred deaths: for it is emphatically added, that those, with whom they desired to be associated, had “died before the Lord.” They acknowledge, therefore, that the destruction, which they imprecate upon themselves, had come to pass not by chance, but by the manifest judgement of God, as if they were angry with God for having spared themselves. Most truly do they call them their brethren, to whom they were only too like; yet is it in brutal arrogance that they desire to be accounted God’s Church; for, whilst they professedly connect themselves with the adverse faction, they arrogate falsely this title to themselves.