《Ellicott’sCommentary for English Readers – Numbers》(Charles J. Ellicott)
Commentator
Charles John Ellicott, compiler of and contributor to this renowned Bible Commentary, was one of the most outstanding conservative scholars of the 18th century. He was born at Whitwell near Stamford, England, on April 25, 1819. He graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, where other famous expositors like Charles Simeon and Handley Moule studied. As a Fellow of St. John's, he constantly lectured there. In 1847, Charles Ellicott was ordained a Priest in the Church of England. From 1841 to 1848, he served as Rector of Pilton, Rutlandshire. He became Hulsean Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, in 1860. The next three years, 1861 to 1863, he ministered as Dean of Exeter, and later in 1863 became the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.
Conspicuous as a Bible Expositor, he is still well known for his Critical and Grammatical Commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians and Philemon. Other printed works include Modern Unbelief, The Being of God, The History and Obligation of the Sabbath.
This unique Bible Commentary is to be highly recommended for its worth to Pastors and Students. Its expositions are simple and satisfying, as well as scholarly. Among its most commendable features, mention should be made of the following: It contains profitable suggestions concerning the significance of names used in Scripture.
00 Introduction
THE FOURTH BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED
NUMBERS.
______
Numbers.
BY
REV. C. J. ELLICOTT, M. A.
INTRODUCTION
THE FOURTH BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED NUMBERS.
THE appellation commonly given by the Jews to the fourth Book of the Pentateuch, as in the case of the titles of the other Books, is derived from one of the words which occur in the first verse of the first chapter—viz., bemidbar: “in the desert.” The names given to it in the Greek, Latin, and English versions—viz., άριθμοὶ, Numeri, Numbers—are derived from the account which it contains of the results of the census which was taken shortly after the Exodus, and of that which was taken at the expiration of the wanderings in the wilderness.
The contents of this book may be described as follows:—
Numbers 1:1 to Numbers 10:10.
The preparations for the departure from Mount Sinai, and for the march into the land of Canaan: including (1) the numbering of the males of eleven tribes, from twenty years old and upwards, who were capable of bearing arms; (2) the numbering of the Levites, from one month old and upwards; (3) the numbering of the firstborn, and the substitution of the Levites for the firstborn; (4) the order of encampment and of the march; (5) the regulations for the preservation of order in the camp; (6) some additional legislation, either supplementary to, or explanatory of, that which is contained in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus; (7) the law of the Nazarites; (8) the form of priestly blessing; (9) the offerings of the princes for the service of the Tabernacle; (10) instructions concerning lighting the lamps of the golden candlestick, the consecration of the Levites, and the respective ages at which they were to enter on the various parts of their service; (11) the celebration of the first Passover after the Exodus; (12) the appointment of the Passover of the second month; (13) the description of the miraculous guidance of the people; and (14) the directions respecting the use of the silver trumpets.
Numbers 10:11 to Numbers 14:45.
These chapters contain the account of (1) the departure of the Israelites from Sinai; (2) the order of the march; (3) the invitation of Moses to Hobab; (4) the watchwords of the march; (5) the murmurings of the people against God and against Moses; (6) the fire at Taberah; (7) the prophesying of Eldad and Medad; (8) the miraculous supply of quails; (9) the plague at Kibroth-hattaavah; (10) the insurrection of Miriam and Aaron against Moses, and the leprosy of Miriam; (11) the expedition of the spies into the land of Canaan, and their report; (12) the judgment denounced against the generation which was numbered at Sinai; and (13) the presumptuous attempt to enter Canaan by way of the Negeb, and the discomfiture at Hormah.
Numbers 15:1 to Numbers 19:22.
These chapters contain (1) some legislative enactments which were to be held in abeyance during the sojourn in the wilderness, and which were to come into operation after the entrance into Canaan; (2) the account of the insurrection of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the plague which followed upon it; (3) the miraculous confirmation of the Aaronic priesthood by the blossoming of Aaron’s rod; (4) a more accurate definition of the respective duties of the priests and Levites; and (5) the law for the purification of those who were defiled by contact with the dead, by means of the ashes of the red heifer.
Numbers 20:1 to Numbers 25:18.
These chapters contain the account of (1) the abode in Kadesh-Barnea; (2) the second recorded miraculous supply of water; (3) the sentence pronounced against Moses and Aaron; (4) the refusal of the King of Edom to grant the Israelites a passage through his land; (5) the death of Aaron; (6) the expedition against the King of Arad; (7) the plague of the fiery serpents, and the construction and erection of the brazen serpent,-(8) the march to Mount Pisgah; (9) the victory over Sihon, the King of the Amorites, and Og, the King of Bashan; (10) the history of Balak and Balaam; and (11) the plague at Shittim.
Numbers 26:1 to Numbers 36:13.
These chapters contain the account of (1) the second census of the people; (2) the inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad; (3) the consecration of Joshua; (4) the enlargement of the law respecting the two daily lambs and the Sabbath-day offerings; (5) the law respecting the vows of women; (6) the war against Midian; (7) the assignment of the land on the eastern side of the Jordan to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh; (8) a list of the encampments; (9) the renewed command concerning the expulsion of the Canaanites and the destruction of their idolatrous images; (10) the determination of the boundaries of the land, and the list of men appointed to distribute it; (11) the regulations respecting the Levitical cities and the cities of refuge; and (12) laws respecting the tribal inheritance, and the limitation of the right of marriage in regard to heiresses.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF NUMBERS.
The period of time embraced in the Book of Numbers is clearly defined. The narrative begins with the command which was given to Moses to take a census of the people “on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt” (Numbers 1:1). The death of Aaron, as recorded in Numbers 33:38, took place “in the fortieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first day of the fifth month.” The interval between these two events is exactly thirty-eight years and three months; and inasmuch as the last recorded events in the Book of Numbers took place on the eastern side of the Jordan, and the rehearsal of the law, as contained in the Book of Deuteronomy, took place in the beginning of the eleventh month of the fortieth year (Deuteronomy 1:3), and the passage of the Jordan was effected under Joshua on the tenth day of the first month of the following year (Joshua 4:19), it will appear that the entire period embraced in the Book of Numbers is somewhat short of thirty-nine years.
ANTIQUITY OF THE BOOK OF NUMBERS.
The antiquity of this Book is proved by the numerous references which are found in the later books to the events which are recorded in it. The following will suffice by way of illustration :—
(1) In Joshua 1:7 reference is made to the charge which Moses gave to Joshua by the commandment of the Lord (Numbers 27:23). It may be observed that the same Hebrew word which is here rendered “gave a charge,” is used also in Joshua 1:7, where it is rendered “commanded.”
(2) In Joshua 2:10 we find a reference to the utter destruction of Sihon and Og, which is recorded in Numbers 21:24-35.
(3) In Joshua 5:6 we find a reference to the oath which the Lord sware that He would not show the land of promise to the men of war who came out of Egypt, and to the fact that all the men of war who came out of Egypt were consumed in the wilderness, “because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord.” In Numbers 14:28-32 we find the oath to which reference is made; and in Numbers 26:63-65 we find a statement that at the later census there was not left a man of those who were numbered at the former census, save Joshua and Caleb. Nor is this all: for we find an agreement in the two accounts which is corroborative of the historical accuracy of both. It has been alleged as a discrepancy between the threat and its recorded accomplishment, that Eleazar, who acted as a priest shortly after the Exodus, and who was therefore, in all probability, upwards of twenty years of age at the first census, was not only engaged in making the second census, but is found amongst those who entered into the land of Canaan. On a closer examination, however, of the threat of exclusion, as recorded in the Book of Numbers, and its fulfilment, as recorded both in the Book of Numbers and in the Book of Joshua, it will be found to refer only to those who were enrolled at the first census taken at Sinai as men of war over twenty years of age, and consequently that the tribe of Levi, which was not included in that census, was not included in the sentence of extermination. In like manner, in Joshua 5:6, it is stated, not as it has been commonly supposed, that all the Israelites who were over twenty years of age perished in the wilderness, but “all the people that were men of war”—i.e., the “six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty,” who are expressly described in Numbers 1:45 as “all that were able to go forth to war in Israel.”
(4) The reference in Joshua 17:4 to the inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad accords verbally with that contained in Numbers 27:7. In the latter place Moses is said to have received a command to “give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren.” In the former place it is said that Joshua, “according to the commandment of thy Lord, gave them an inheritance among the brethren of their father.”
(5) The reference to the Kenites in 1 Samuel 15:6 not only derives elucidation from Numbers 10:29-32, but reflects light upon that passage. The result of the invitation which Moses gave to Hobab to accompany the Israelites on their march through the wilderness is not recorded in the Book of Numbers. We learn, however, from Judges 1:16 that “the children of the Kenite “accompanied the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah; and in 1 Samuel 15:6 Saul refers to the kindness which the Kenites showed to the children of Israel as a well-established fact.
(6) One of the most conclusive indications of the reception of the Book of Numbers by the later writers of Holy Scripture, as containing a true history of the events which are recorded in it, will be found in the incidental allusion to the order of the marches through the wilderness, which we find in Psalms 80:2, “Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up Thy strength, and come and save us.” This Psalm was manifestly composed, as it is implied in the first verse, whilst the Temple of Solomon was still standing, but subsequently to the separation of the kingdom in the time of Rehoboam. The combination of the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, though partially explained by their common origin as descendants of Jacob by Rachel, presents upon the surface the obvious difficulty that Benjamin was attached to the southern, and Ephraim and Manasseh to the northern kingdom. A closer examination, however, of the Psalm, when elucidated by the order of the march, as prescribed in the second chapter of Numbers, will suffice to make the allusion of the Psalmist obvious. The reference in Leviticus 27:1 is to the supernatural guidance of the hosts of Israel, and the mind of the writer would naturally revert to that period of the history of his people when Divine guidance was most needed and most manifestly displayed. Now we find from Numbers 2:18-22, that during their encampments in the wilderness the three tribes here mentioned pitched together on the west side of the Tabernacle; and we find in Leviticus 27:17 of the same chapter a direction which we are told (see Numbers 10:21-22), was observed when the camp broke up and the Israelites commenced their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai—viz., that the Tabernacle of the congregation was to set forward in such order that the eastern and southern camps were to precede it, and that the western camp, which, as we have seen, was composed of the three tribes here named, was to follow it. When, moreover, we bear in mind that the sacred Ark was commonly regarded and designated as the ark of God’s strength (Psalms 132:8), there can remain little doubt of the reference of the writer of Psalms 80 to the prescribed order of the encampment and to the marches through the wilderness, as recorded in the Book of Numbers, when he gave utterance to the prayer, “Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up Thy strength and come and save us.”
(7) A few other references in the later Books to the Book of Numbers may be more briefly noticed.
(1) In 1 Samuel 15:29 we find a quotation from Numbers 22:19.
(2) In 1 Samuel 30:7-8, and elsewhere, we find allusions to the mode of inquiry of the Lord, of which the first mention is found in Numbers 27:21.
(4) In Jeremiah 48:45, we find a reference to, or rather a quotation from, Numbers 21:28, and an obvious allusion to Numbers 24:17.
(5) In Joshua 22:17, Psalms 106:28, and Hosea 9:10, we find an allusion to the idolatrous abominations of Baal-peor, as recorded in Numbers 25.
(6) In Amos 2:9, we find an allusion to the gigantic size of the Anakim, as related in Numbers 13:33.
(7) In Obadiah 1:4; Obadiah 1:19, we find allusions to Numbers 24:18; Numbers 24:21.
The above will suffice as illustrations of references, which might be almost indefinitely multiplied, to the history of the Israelites, and to events connected with that history, as they are recorded in the Book of Numbers. It is scarcely too much to affirm that no inconsiderable portion of the contents of this Book might be recovered from the various references and allusions to it which are dispersed over the later Books of the Old Testament.
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF NUMBERS.
Much which has been said upon the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch generally applies with special force to the authorship of the Book of Numbers. One portion of this Book, viz. the catalogue of the stations or encampments of the Israelites, as recorded in Numbers 33, is expressly ascribed to Moses in the following words: “And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord” (Leviticus 27:2). Some of the legislative enactments which are found only in the Book of Numbers, or which are recapitulated in the Book of Deuteronomy, are expressly assigned to Moses in the Book of Joshua. Such, e.g., are the following: (1) the law that the Levites were to have no separate inheritance of land amongst the children of Israel (Joshua 13:14; Joshua 13:33; Joshua 14:3-4, compared with Numbers 18:20-24; Deuteronomy 10:9; Deuteronomy 14:27; Deuteronomy 18:1-2), but only cities to dwell in, with their suburbs taken out of the inheritance of the other tribes (Joshua 21:2, compared with Numbers 35:1-4); and (2) the assignment by lot(117) of the inheritance of the nine tribes and a half on the west of the Jordan, and of the two tribes and a half on the east of the Jordan (Joshua 14:2-3; Joshua 18:7, compared with Numbers 26:55; Numbers 32:33; Numbers 33:54; Numbers 34:13).
OBJECTIONS TO THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF NUMBERS.
It will be desirable in this place to notice some of the principal objections which have been urged against the historical accuracy, and the Mosaic authorship, of the Book of Numbers, premising only that those objections which rest upon passages in which Moses speaks as a prophet, not as an historian, do not fall within the scope of a work such as the present.
I.—THE ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST CENSUS.
The difficulties in the account of the census which was taken on the plain of Sinai, as it is related in Numbers 1, may be enumerated as follows :—
(1) The precise agreement in the number of Israelites above twenty years of age as recorded in this census, with the number which is recorded in Exodus 38:26, where the reference is to a transaction which probably took place about six or seven months previously.
(2) The fact that the numbers of the respective tribes are round numbers, and, with the exception of the tribe of Gad, which has a complete fifty, that all the numbers are in round hundreds.
It has been suggested, in regard to the first difficulty, that there is nothing impossible in the fact that the number of the Israelites should not have been diminished by deaths in the course of six or seven months. This supposition, however, independently of its improbability does not meet the real difficulty, inasmuch as there must in all probability have been many at the later date who had completed their twentieth year who could not have been included in the census of those who were twenty years old and upwards, which was taken six or seven months previously. The supposition that the number of those who died in the course of the following six or seven months was exactly equal to the number of those who attained their twentieth year in the interval, is equally improbable with the supposition that no deaths occurred in the interval; and. in any case, the difficulty attending the round numbers, on the supposition that they represent accurately the results of two distinct censuses, taken at two distinct periods, is one which, in the absence of any indication of miraculous agency, seems to be insuperable.