Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 33:8
And they departed from before Pi-hahiroth, and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah.
STAT. IV.
Verse 8. And went three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham] Called the wilderness of Shur, Ex 15:22.
And pitched in MARAH.] Dr. Shaw supposes this place to be at Sedur, over against the valley of Baideah, on the opposite side of the Red Sea.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
8. Marahthought to be AinHowarah, both from its position and the time (three days) it wouldtake them with their children and flocks to march from the water ofAyun Musa to that spot.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And they departed from before Pihahiroth,…. Being forced by Pharaoh’s army pressing upon them:
and passed through the midst of the sea; from shore to shore, as on dry laud:
into the wilderness: that part of it which lay on the other side, for still it was the wilderness of Etham they went into, as follows:
and went three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah; so called from the bitterness of the waters there, and which is computed to be forty miles from Pihahiroth.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
8. And they departed from before Pi-hahiroth. He relates how the people marched forwards for three days; not so much in praise of their endurance, as in celebration of God’s wonderful power, who sustained so great a multitude without water. For we must bear in mind, what I have elsewhere shewn, that from the passage of the Red Sea to Marah there was no water found; whence the impiety of the people was the more detestable, since they there burst forth into rebellion on account of the bitter taste of the water. On the other side, the incomparable mercy of God shone forth, in that He condescended to refresh these churlish and provoking men in a pleasant and delightful station; for from their first encampment they were led on to Elim, where they found twelve fountains and seventy palm-trees. Moses passes briefly over the wilderness of Sin, as if nothing worthy of being recorded had occurred there; whereas the vile impiety of the people there betrayed itself, and the place was ennobled by a signal miracle, since the manna rained from heaven for the nourishment of the people, so that, the windows of heaven being opened, mortal man “did eat angels’ food.” He also briefly adverts to the want of water to drink at Rephidim: but he deemed it sufficient here to enumerate the stations, which might recall the various occurrences to the memory of the people. On the Graves of Concupiscence a memorial of God’s punishment was inscribed; but since he simply gives a list of other places, without any record of events, we may gather, as I have above stated, that he had no other design than to set before the eyes of the people the peregrination in which they had been engaged for forty years. He, however, cursorily mentions the death of Aaron; because his life had been prolonged, by God’s special blessing, for the good of the people, until the time approached when they were about to enter the promised land; since his authority was a useful and necessary restraint upon the ungovernable character of this headstrong people. At the same time the punishment inflicted upon the holy man should have reminded posterity that it was not without reason that their fathers had been so severely chastised, since they had not ceased to add sin to sin, when God had not spared even His own servant on account of a single transgression.
When he adds just afterwards, that the Canaanite then first heard of the coming the children of Israel, he indicates that God had put a veil over the eyes of their enemies, lest they should oppose them at an earlier period. For God so mitigated the severity of His judgment, that the exile of the Israelites was, at any rate, undisturbed, and free from outward molestation, as long as they had to wander in the desert.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
8. The wilderness, three days The wilderness of Shur. Exo 15:22, note.
Marah The modern ‘Aryun Hawwara. Dr. Strong and his party rode their dromedaries up to the mouth of one of the wells, and found it dry and nearly filled with sand. The ground is slightly elevated and crowned with a few stunted palm trees. Exo 15:23, note.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Num 33:8. And passed through the midst of the sea We cannot but recommend our readers to what M. Vignoles has written upon the event; he has given to the sentiment of M. Le Clerc all the evidence of which it is capable, and to the grandeur of the miracle all the light that can be desired. See his Chronol. tom. 1: p. 643, &c.
In the wilderness of Etham Etham was the second station; the geography of which, says Dr. Shaw, is not much better circumstanced than that of the first. If it appertained to the wilderness of the same name, which spread itself round the Heroopolitic gulph, and made after wards the Saracene of the old geography; then the edge of it (Num 33:6.) may be well taken for the most advanced part of it towards Egypt, and consequently to lie contiguous with some portion or other of the mountains of the lower Thebais, or of Mocatte or Mocattem, as they are called, near Kairo. The particular spot of it likewise may probably be determined, by what is recorded afterwards of the Israelites, Exo 14:2 that upon their removing from the edge of this wilderness, they are immediately ordered to turn [to the south-east] from the course, as we may imagine, of their former marches, which was hitherto in an easterly direction, and to encamp before
Pi-hahiroth. As Pi-hahiroth, therefore, must lie to the right-hand of the wilderness of Etham, within, or on the other side of these mountains; so the second station, or the particular portion of this wilderness of Etham, may be fixed about fifty miles from Kairo. Travels, p. 308. M. de Monconys, in his Travels, speaking of this country, says, “At the end of these mountains (the same as described by Dr. Shaw) is a very wide tract of country, which extends to the Red Sea; the view of which is prodigiously fine for three hundred paces within the mountains; from whence you begin to discern it, and see this admirable natural perspective. We travelled in this plain from two in the afternoon till eight in the evening; and a day or two after we walked again for an hour in the plain, which winds about betwixt the high mountains all the way to the sea, and makes the plain look like an artificial canal, excepting its breadth, which is little less than two leagues.” See Travels, in 12mo. Paris, 1695. It is evident, says, M. Vignoles, from what this author has observed, that the city of Etham was but a little way from the Red Sea, and in that wide champaign of which he here speaks. The sacred historian remarks, that Etham was on the edge of the wilderness, because there, indeed, the wilderness of Egypt, now in question, and which begins very near to Kairo, terminates, as M. Monconys and other travellers testify; the desart, which lies beyond the Red Sea, making part of Arabia. On this edge of the wilderness of Egypt, then, the Israelites encamped on the second day of their march. See Vignoles’s Chronolog. lib. iii. c. 1. sect. 9.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
before Pi-hahiroth. Hebrew text and Revised Version = “before Hahiroth”; but this differs from the other two occurrences of the name (Exo 14:2, Exo 14:9), in all three of which it is Pi-hahiroth. A special various reading called Sevir (App-34) has the full name Pi-hahiroth in this verse. The Authorized Version has kept the Pi as well, and made it “before Pi-“. It should, perhaps, read here, as in every other case in this chapter, “from Pi-hahiroth”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
departed: Exo 14:21, Exo 14:22-31, Exo 15:22-26
Etham: Called Shur in Exodus; but Dr. Shaw says that Shur is a particular district of the wilderness of Etham.
Reciprocal: Exo 15:23 – Marah Num 33:7 – they removed 1Co 10:1 – and all