Bible Commentaries

Numbers 33:2 And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD: and these [are] their journeys according to their goings out.

Ver. 2. And Moses wrote.] Moses was primus in historia, as Martial saith of Salust.

Numbers 33:4 For the Egyptians buried all [their] firstborn, which the LORD had smitten among them: upon their gods also the LORD executed judgments.

Ver. 4. For the Egyptians buried.] As iron is very soft and malleable while in the fire, but soon after returns to its former hardness, so was it with these Egyptians. Affliction meekeneth men: hence affliction and meekness grow upon the same Hebrew root.

Numbers 33:29 And they went from Mithcah, and pitched in Hashmonah.

Ver. 29. From Mitheah.] Which signifies sweetness.

And pitched in Chasmonah.] Which signifies swiftness. We must also, when we have tasted of God’s sweetness, use all possible swiftness in the ways of holiness; as Jacob, when he had seen visions of God at Bethel, "lifted up his feet," [Genesis 29:1, marg.} and went on his way lustily, like a generous horse after a bait, or a giant after his wine. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." {Nehemiah 8:10]

Numbers 33:38 And Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor at the commandment of the LORD, and died there, 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.

Ver. 38. And died there in the fortieth year.]

“ Nec te tua plurima Pentheu

Labentem texit pietas. ”

The righteous die as well as the wicked, yea, the righteous oft before the wicked: Wκυμοροι οι θεοφιλεις. God sends his servants to bed when they have done their work, as here he did Aaron; and as within these few days he hath done, to mine unspeakable loss and grief, my dearest brother and most faithful friend, Mr Thomas Jackson, that able and active instrument of God’s glory, while he lived, in the work of the ministry at Gloucester; the sad report of whose death, received whilst I was writing these things, made the pen, almost, fall out of my fingers, not for my own sake so much as for my country, whereof he was, I may truly say, the bulwark and the beauty, as Ambrose is said to have been "the walls of Italy": {a} Aμβροσιον οιδα μονον Eπισκοπον αξιως καλουμενον, said Theodosius; Ambrose, whilst alive, was the only minister, to speak of, that I knew in the whole country. And dilexi virum, qui cum corpore solveretur, magis de ecclesiarum statu, quam de suis periculis angebatur, said the same emperor of the same Ambrose; I could not but love the man, for that when he died, his care was more for the churches’ welfare than for his own. I can safely say the same of the man in speech, without offence to any be it spoken; and I greatly fear lest, as the death of Ambrose forebode the ruin of Italy, so that it bodes no good to us, that God pulls such props and pillars out of our building. But this by way of digression, to satisfy my great grief for so dear a friend deceased, as David did for his brother Jonathan, and made him an epitaph. [2 Samuel 1:17]

Numbers 33:41 And they departed from mount Hor, and pitched in Zalmonah.

Ver. 41. Pitched in Zalmonah.] Of Zelem; signifying an image; so called because there the people, stung by fiery serpents, not by little dragons sprung out of their own bodies, as Fontunius Licetus ^(a) will have it, looked up to the brazen serpent, by God’s command, and were healed. [Numbers 21:5; Numbers 21:9 John 3:16 1 Corinthians 10:9]

Numbers 33:52 Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:

Ver. 52. Destroy all the pictures.] Those Balaam’s blocks, those excellent instruments of idolatry; such as was the cross of Hailes, and Cockram cross, which, if it would not serve to make a god, yet with a pair of horns clapped on his head, might make an excellent devil, as the mayor of Doncaster persuaded the men of Cockram, who came to him to complain of the joiner that made it, and refused to pay him his money for the making of it. ^(a)

Numbers 33:55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them [shall be] pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.

Ver. 55. Shall be pricks in your eyes.] The eye is the tenderest part, and soon vexed with the least mote that falls into it. These Jebusites preserved, should be notorious mischiefs to them; as the Jesuits at this day are to those Christian states that harbour them. Shall we suffer those vipers to lodge in our bosoms till they eat out our hearts? Sic notus Ulysses? Jesuits, like bells, will never be well tuned till well hanged. Among much change of houses in foreign parts, they have in France two famous for the accordance of their names, the one called the Bow at Nola, the other the Arrow, la Fleche, given them by Henry IV, whom afterwards they villanously stabbed to death. Their apostate Ferrier played upon them in this distitch: -

“ Arcum Nola dedit, dedit illis alma sagttram

Gallia; quis funem, quem meruere, dabit! ”

“Nola the bow, and France the shaft did bring;

But who shall help them to a hempen string?”