Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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.
Verse 2. And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys] We may consider the whole book of Numbers as a diary, and indeed the first book of travels ever published. Dr. Shaw, Dr. Pococke, and several others, have endeavoured to mark out the route of the Israelites, through this great, dreary, and trackless desert, and have ascertained many of the stages here described. Indeed there are sufficient evidences of this important journey still remaining, for the descriptions of many are so particular that the places are readily ascertained by them; but this is not the case with all. Israel was the Church of God in the wilderness, and its unsettled, wandering state under Moses may point out the unsettled state of religion under the law. Their being brought, after the death of Moses, into the promised rest by Joshua, may point out the establishment, fixedness, and certainty of that salvation provided by Jesus Christ, of whom Joshua, in name and conduct, was a remarkable type. Mr. Ainsworth imagines that the forty-two stations here enumerated, through which the Israelites were brought to the verge of the promised land, and afterwards taken over Jordan into the rest which God had promised, point out the forty-two generations from Abraham unto Christ, through whom the Saviour of the world came, by whose blood we have an entrance into the holiest, and enjoy the inheritance among the saints in light. And Mr. Bromley, in his Way to the Sabbath of Rest, considers each name and place as descriptive of the spiritual state through which a soul passes in its way to the kingdom of God. But in cases of this kind fancy has much more to do than judgment.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Moses would have this done, partly to evince the truth of the history, partly to preserve the remembrance of Gods glorious and miraculous works both of judgment and mercy towards his people, and thereby to confirm their faith in their present difficult undertaking.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. Moses wrote their goings outaccording to their journeys by the commandment of the LordThewisdom of this divine order is seen in the importance of the end towhich it was subservientnamely, partly to establish the truth ofthe history, partly to preserve a memorial of God’s marvellousinterpositions on behalf of Israel, and partly to confirm their faithin the prospect of the difficult enterprise on which they wereentering, the invasion of Canaan.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord,…. Which may be understood, either that their journeys were by the commandment of the Lord; so Aben Ezra takes the connection to be, and which is undoubtedly true, and which is expressed plainly elsewhere; for so it was, that when the cloud abode on the tabernacle they rested, and had their stations, and continued as long as the cloud tarried on it, and when that was taken up, then they marched; and thus at the commandment of the Lord they rested, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed, see Nu 9:17 or that Moses wrote the account of their journeys, and several stations, at the commandment of the Lord, that it might be on record, and be read in future ages, and appear to be a fact, that they were led about in a wilderness, in places which were unknown to others, and had no names but what they gave them:
and these are their journeys according to their goings out; from place to place; some of the ancients, as Jerom z particularly, and some modern writers, have allegorized these journeys of the children of Israel, and have fancied that there is something in the signification of the names of the places they came to, and abode in, suitable to the cases and circumstances of the people of God in their passage through this world; but though the travels of the children of Israel in the wilderness may in general be an emblem of the case and condition of the people of God in this world, and there are many things in them, and which they met with, and befell them, that may be accommodated to them; yet the particulars will never hold good of individual saints, since they are not all led exactly in the same path of difficulties and troubles, but each have something peculiar to themselves; and it will be difficult to apply these things to the church of God in general, in the several stages and periods of time, and which I do not know that any have attempted; and yet, if there is anything pointed out by the travels, one would think it should be that.
z “De 42 mansionibus”, Fabiolae, “inter opera ejus”, T. 3. fol. 13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(2) By the commandment of the Lord.It does not clearly appear whether these words should be understood of the record of the journeys of the Israelites as being made by Moses in obedience to a Divine command, or whether they should be understood of the journeys themselves as being taken in obedience to the Divine command.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. Moses wrote their goings This is a proof of the Mosaic authorship of this book. See Introduction, (2.)
By the commandment of the Lord While all Scripture is given by inspiration in some degree, this important record is written by commandment, implying the highest degree of inspiration.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Num 33:2. Moses wrote their goings out, according to their journeysand these are their journeys, &c. Houbigant renders the verse, For Moses wrote, at the command of the Lord, their journeys, according to their several stages; and hence he thinks it may plainly be collected, that a daily journal of their occurrences was written, which was kept as a public deposit, and that the sacred writers (under Divine inspiration) drew their materials principally from these annals. See his note on Deu 4:34. Bishop Kidder thinks, that the words, by the command of the Lord, may well refer both to their journeyings, which were directed by God, Exo 13:21; Exo 14:2 and to Moses’s description of them in this place, which tended to render the history more credible, and to perpetuate the memory of God’s miraculous and special providence. Moses mentions but forty-two encampments in this chapter; not that the Israelites pitched their tents in no other places, but because these were most remarkable. Observe further, that almost all these places received from God himself, or the Israelites, the names which they bear in this journal; probably they had none before, these vast desarts being too little frequented for the different places to be exactly marked out before the departure from Egypt. We find some here of which Moses makes no mention in Exodus; others are named there in another manner, as will appear in the course of this chapter. But to convince the reader that he would be greatly mistaken if he took the stations, of which Moses speaks, for journeys made from one place to another without stopping, we only beg him to look at the 9th verse, where it is said, that from Morah the children of Israel came to Elim. It is farther from one of these places to the other than from Cairo to the Red Sea, which, says Dr. Shaw, is more than thirty hours journey; or, according to the accounts followed by Vignoles, from twenty-five to twenty-six hours.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Num 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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
wrote. See note on Exo 17:14, and App-47.
commandment. Hebrew “mouth”, put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Cause) for what is spoken by it.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
journeys: Num 9:17-23, Num 10:6, Num 10:13, Deu 1:2, Deu 10:11
Reciprocal: Deu 10:6 – took Deu 31:9 – Moses Psa 56:8 – tellest