Numberschapter 10
36 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
Numbers 10 is the hinge of the book, where nearly a year at the mountain ends and the march begins. It was set down for a camp that had learned its places and now had to keep them on the move. The chapter opens with the instruments that would carry signals across a crowd too large for any voice. Listen for the order of the column and where the holy things travel in it, and for Moses asking a man who knew the desert to come with them. The chapter closes on the words Moses spoke each time the ark moved off and each time it stopped.
Context
- Who
- A camp that had stood in one place for close to eleven months and was now to move in order
- What
- The making of the two silver trumpets and their signals, and the first march from Sinai in the order the camp had been given, with the ark going ahead.
- Where
- The Wilderness of Sinai, and the road north until the cloud settled in the Wilderness of Paran.
- When
- The twentieth day of the second month of the second year after the Exodus, about 1445 BC on the dating this book uses.
- Why
- To send Israel from the mountain toward the land in order, at God's signal, with His presence leading the way.
Historical context
The chapter is Moses' own, given to the man the LORD spoke with at the mountain, who ordered the trumpets made and led the column out.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Numbers 10:11 puts the lifting of the cloud on the twentieth day of the second month of the second year after the exodus. Exodus 19:1 had brought Israel to the mountain in the third month of the first year, so the stay there ran close to eleven months. On the dating this book uses, with the exodus at about 1446 BC, the departure falls in about 1445 BC.
The place is the Wilderness of Sinai, and the column moves north until the cloud settles in the Wilderness of Paran.
A pair of silver and bronze trumpets was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, short straight instruments with a flared bell that carry a few piercing notes a long way. In a camp of that size a runner with a message was useless and a horn was everything, so the signals were a code rather than a noise. The same instruments were sounded in war, so that God would remember His people, and over the sacrifices at the feasts and the new moons.
One more thing a first hearer knew is how people crossed that country. A man who had lived in it knew where the water and the pasture lay, which is what Moses asks of his Midianite relative Hobab.
Significance
After nearly a year in one place, Israel moved, and it moved in order, at a signal, and behind the ark. The escape from Egypt had become a nation on the march. The rule about sounding the trumpets in battle told them what their weapon was, since the horn was a cry to God to remember them rather than a rallying cry to the troops.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The trumpets are read as a code with three signals in it, and the commentators work the code out from the wording. Rashi takes the command to make them for Moses himself to mean that they were blown in his presence, "as before a king". He supports the title from Deuteronomy 33:5 (Rashi on Numbers 10:2:1). Rashi is quoted in this row from the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, which the corpus marks public domain. A long blast on both trumpets calls the whole congregation to the entrance of the Tent (Rashi on Numbers 10:3:1). A long blast on one calls the princes, and their meeting place is the same entrance, which Rashi derives by a verbal analogy in the Sifrei (Rashi on Numbers 10:4:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 73:1). The signal to set out is a tekiah, a teruah and a tekiah (Rashi on Numbers 10:5:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 73:2 and Rosh Hashanah 34a). He then sets the three side by side and shows how the seventh verse keeps them apart. The assembly is called on both trumpets and the princes on one, each with a plain blast. The setting out of the camps takes both trumpets, with the tremulous blast between two plain ones (Rashi on Numbers 10:7:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 74). The trumpets over the offerings are read of a communal burnt offering (Rashi on Numbers 10:10:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 77 and Arakhin 11b).
The departure from Sinai is dated and ordered. Rashi counts the stay at Horeb as twelve months less ten days, from the new moon of the third month to the twentieth of Iyar in the year following (Rashi on Numbers 10:11:1). Ramban asks why the princes are named over again here, since they stand already in the section of the standards. He offers his own answer. The verse may be teaching that on the road the prince goes at the head of his own host and is to "dwell as a king in the army", in the words of Job 29:25. Israel is then kept from travelling as sheep without a shepherd, and appoints no substitute in his place (Ramban on Numbers 10:14:1, Commentary on the Torah by Ramban, translated by Charles B. Chavel, Shilo, New York, 1971 to 1976). Rashi sets out the order of dismantling. Aaron and his sons took down the Partition Veil and covered the Ark as Judah moved off, and the Gershonites and Merarites took the Tabernacle apart and loaded the wagons. The Ark and the holy vessels stood covered until Reuben's division had gone and the Kohathites followed (Rashi on Numbers 10:17:1). Dan brought up the rear, and Rashi gives a reason from the Jerusalem Talmud, that Dan was numerous and marched last so that whatever any tribe lost, Dan restored to him. He records a division over the shape of the march itself. One authority holds that the camps moved in a square as they had camped, and another that they moved in a line (Rashi on Numbers 10:25:1). The phrase that closes the marching order is read as an order rather than a list of stations, which is what the thirty-third chapter will hold (Rashi on Numbers 10:28:1).
The exchange with Moses' father-in-law is where the classical reading watches a man from outside Israel. Rashi identifies Hobab with Jethro from Judges 4:11, and explains that the daughters called their grandfather father because children commonly do. He gives the names their meanings: Jethro because a section was added to the Torah through him, and Hobab because he loved the Torah (Rashi on Numbers 10:29:1). Jethro's answer is read as a man going home for his property or his family (Rashi on Numbers 10:30:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 79). Moses' plea is read as a care for how it would look. People should not be able to say that Jethro became a proselyte for a share in the Land and left when he learned that proselytes had none (Rashi on Numbers 10:31:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 80). The promise of good is then traced to its payment. When Israel divided the Land they left the most fertile part of Jericho unparcelled. It was to go to whoever gave up the ground the Sanctuary would stand on, and in the meantime they gave it to the children of Jethro (Rashi on Numbers 10:32:1). Rashi supports it from Judges 1:16, and cites Sifrei Bamidbar 81. A Christian reader should weigh what stands here. The classical reading treats a man from Midian as one whose place in Israel's story is worth defending, and it settles his family's portion out of Israel's own inheritance.
The last verses carry two of the sages' best-known readings of this book. The three days' distance from the mountain was covered in one day. Rashi gives the reason: "because the Holy One, blessed be He, desired to bring them straight away into the Land" (Rashi on Numbers 10:33:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 82). The cloud is named seven times in the account, and the rabbis read the count as four clouds screening Israel on four sides. One stood above them and one beneath their feet. One went before them, levelling the high ground, raising the low, and killing the serpents and scorpions in the way (Rashi on Numbers 10:34:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 83:1 and the Baraita of Melechet ha-Mishkan 14). That is teaching of the rabbis, and this site reports it as theirs. The two verses Moses spoke when the Ark set out are marked in the scroll itself. Rashi records that inverted letters were set before and after them, to show that the passage stands away from its own place. It was put here to make a break between the account of one punishment and the account of another (Rashi on Numbers 10:35:1, citing Shabbat 115a and 115b and Sifrei Bamidbar 84:1). Ibn Ezra comments at 10:6:1 and 10:9:1, and Malbim at 10:1:1. The corpus carries no English text for either under its licence, so both stand here cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here and never quoted. The Talmudic ones are fifteen, and most of them sit on the trumpets. Jerusalem Talmud Sukkah 5:6:1 covers the whole passage. Jerusalem Talmud Shevuot 4:1:5 stands on the first verse, Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 1:1:25 on the third, and Arakhin 10a:7 and Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 3:5:4 on the fifth. Rosh Hashanah 34a:8 stands on the sixth, Arakhin 10a:8 on the seventh, Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 3:4:1 on the ninth, and Arakhin 11b:1 and 11b:22 on the tenth. On the march stand Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 1:1:20 on the seventeenth verse and Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin 5:1:17 on the twenty-fifth, and Jerusalem Talmud Bikkurim 1:4:2 on the twenty-ninth. The two verses of the Ark carry Avodah Zarah 24b:18 and Bava Kamma 83a:7.
The midrashic locators run to twenty-five. Midrash Lekach Tov carries eight, at Numbers 10:3:1, 10:7:1, 10:8:1, 10:13:1, 10:14:1, 10:18:1, 10:22:1 and 10:28:1. Ein Yaakov carries four, at Shabbat 16:4, Nedarim 9:1 and Eiruvin 1:1 in the Glick Edition, and Taanit 4:11. Midrash Aggadah carries three, at Numbers 10:31:1, 10:32:1 and 10:34:1, on the plea to Jethro, the promise and the cloud. Bamidbar Rabbah carries three, at 15:13, 15:14 and 16:27. The halakhic midrash stands twice, at Sifrei Bamidbar 75:1 and Sifrei Zuta 10:6:1. Five more stand alone: Midrash Tehillim 81:3, Otzar Midrashim, Sefer Tagin 1:8, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 11, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:22:1, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 4:26. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 10:2:1 to 10:35:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Ramban, Ramban on Numbers 10:14:1, Commentary on the Torah by Ramban, translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel, Shilo, New York, 1971 to 1976; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 10:6:1 and 10:9:1, cited by ref because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit the text here; Malbim, Malbim on Numbers 10:1:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/10.json, the 15 Talmud and 25 Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Two trumpets of beaten silver
Numbers 10:1-2
The instrument commanded here is the silver trumpet, a different thing from the ram’s horn that sounded at Sinai in Exodus 19:16. The word rendered “hammered” is used of the lampstand at Exodus 25:31, beaten out of one mass. Verse 2 names two uses at once, “calling the congregation” and “having the camps set out”, so worship and marching orders come from one pair of instruments.
Numbers 10:1
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... When the following directions concerning the trumpets were given is not certain; it may he at the time when the order of the camps of Israel was fixed, and is here recorded before the journeying of them, which was one use they were to be put unto, Num 10:2, saying; as follows.”
Barnes describes the trumpet as a straight tube, of the kind carved among the temple spoils on the Arch of Titus. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that solid silver gave a shrill, distinct sound that carried over the whole camp. John Wesley says two were made for Aaron's two sons.
Numbers 10:2
“Make thee two trumpets of silver - The necessity of such instruments will at once appear, when the amazing extent of this numerous army is considered; and how even the sound of two trumpets could reach them all is difficult to conceive; but we may suppose that, when they were sounded, the motion of those that were within reach of that sound taught the others in succession what they should do.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 10:2
“And although the camp comprehended 2,500,000 of people, two trumpets would be quite sufficient, for sound is conveyed easily through the pure atmosphere and reverberated strongly among the valleys of the Sinaitic hills.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 10:3-4
Both trumpets blown together bring the whole nation to the door of the tent, and one trumpet brings the princes only. The signal carries its own address, so a man knows from the sound whether he is the one being called. The gathering place is the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, which Exodus 29:42 had already named as the place where God meets them.
Numbers 10:3
“And when they shall blow with them,.... With both the trumpets, in an even and continued sound, that is, the sons of Aaron: all the assembly shall assemble themselves to thee at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; to hear what was to be said unto them: blowing both the trumpets together was a token that the whole congregation was called to meet together at the tabernacle, the door of which was the usual place of assembling, especially on religious counts, for there also the Lord met them, Exo 29:42.”
One trumpet calls only the leaders, the heads of the clans, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say they met to consult on public affairs. Matthew Henry reasons that a lesser signal suited the men who ought to lead the way in every good thing. The leaders answer to less.
Numbers 10:5-7
The alarm is a broken run of “short blasts” and the ordinary call a long even note, and verse 7 states the difference: “you are to sound long blasts, not short ones”. One sounding moves the east camps and a second moves the south. The Hebrew stops at two, but the Septuagint adds signals for the west and north, so Barnes and Clarke reckon a third and fourth were blown.
Numbers 10:5
“Blow an alarm - i. e. along continuous peal. Compare Num 10:7, ye shall blow, but not sound an alarm: i. e. blow in short, sharp notes, not in a continuous peal. A third and a fourth alarm were probably blown as signals.”
The second signal moves the southern camp, Reuben with Simeon and Gad, which Numbers 2:16 had set to go second. John Wesley takes the closing words as the sign for that camp to march and for the rest to follow in turn. Reuben's camp went next after Judah's.
Numbers 10:6
“One alarm was the recognized signal for the eastern division of the camp (the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun) to march; two alarms gave the signal for the southern to move; and, though it is not in our present Hebrew text, the Septuagint has, that on three alarms being sounded, those on the west; while on four blasts, those on the north decamped.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Matthew Henry, Gill and Clarke take the short blasts of an alarm as a broken, quavering sound and the gathering call as one even note. Barnes reads the alarm the other way, as one continuous peal. Henry adds that Joel 2:1 sounds an alarm when the people face God's judgment.
Numbers 10:8-10
And the sons of Aaron, the priests: The trumpets belong to the priests alone as “a permanent statute”, and 2 Chronicles 5:12 has a hundred and twenty priests sounding them at the temple. Verse 9 gives them to war and verse 10 to “joyous occasions” and new months, and both uses bring Israel to remembrance before God. Numbers 31:6 sends Phinehas to battle with the trumpets in his hand.
Numbers 10:8
“The sons of Aaron - As the trumpets were emblematic of the voice of God, the priests only were to use them. At this time there were only two “sons of Aaron;” but in later times, when the number of priests was greater, more trumpets were used; we read of seven in the times of Joshua and David (see the marginal references.); and of a hundred and twenty in that of Solomon 2Ch 5:12.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 10:8
“In order to attract greater attention and more faithful observance, it was reserved to the priests alone, as the Lord's ministers; and as anciently in Persia and other Eastern countries the alarm trumpets were sounded from the tent of the sovereign, so were they blown from the tabernacle, the visible residence of Israel's King.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Calvin holds that the priests acted as heralds of war so that God Himself would be the one who began it. Barnes reads the trumpet in battle as a sign that God's people depended on His aid, and Matthew Henry calls it an appeal to heaven. The sound was a prayer.
Numbers 10:9
“If ye go to war--In the land of Canaan, either when attacked by foreign invaders or when they went to take possession according to the divine promise, "ye [that is, the priests] shall blow an alarm." This advice was accordingly acted upon (Nu 31:6; 2Ch 13:12); and in the circumstances it was an act of devout confidence in God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Matthew Henry notes that one feast, the first day of the seventh month in Leviticus 23:24, was itself announced by trumpet blasts. John Wesley reads a reminder before your God as a plea for God to remember them for good. Holy work was to be done with holy joy.
Numbers 10:10
“In the day of your gladness - On every festival the people shall be collected by the same means.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 10:10
“The apostle tells us that mount Sinai genders to bondage ( Gal. iv. 24 ), and signifies the law there given, which is of use indeed as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, yet we must not rest in it, but advance towards the joys and liberties of the children of God, for our happiness is conferred not by the law, but by promise.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 10:10
“In the day of your gladness - Compare Num 29:1; Lev 23:24; 2Ch 29:27; Ezr 3:10; Neh 12:35, Neh 12:41; Psa 81:3.”
The cloud lifts and Israel marches
Numbers 10:11-12
on the twentieth day of the second month: Exodus 19:1 brought Israel to Sinai in the third month of the first year, and this verse dates the departure to the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, so the camp at the mountain stood close to eleven months. Everything from Exodus 19 through Numbers 10:10 happens in that one place. The cloud is taken up and the nation moves, which is the rule laid down at Numbers 9:17-23, and no man gives the order.
Numbers 10:11
“At this point commences the second great division of the book, extending to the close of Num. 14. The remaining verses of the present chapter narrate the actual break up of the camp at Sinai and the order of the march.”
Barnes says Paran is named here ahead of time, as the first halts at Kibroth-hattaavah and Hazeroth lay outside it. Numbers 12:16 brings the people into Paran from Hazeroth. Wesley adds that they travelled out and returned there.
Numbers 10:12
“The cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran - This was three days’ journey from the wilderness of Sinai, (see Num 10:33), and the people had three stations; the first at Kibroth-hattaavah, the second at Hazeroth, Num 11:35, and the third in the wilderness of Paran, see Num 12:16. But it is extremely difficult to determine these journeyings with any degree of exactness; and we are often at a loss to know whether the place in question was in a direct or retrograde position from the place previously mentioned.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 10:13-14
Judah leads, as Numbers 2:3 had set it on the east, and that precedence runs back to Genesis 49:10. The commander is Nahshon son of Amminadab, whose sister Elisheba married Aaron at Exodus 6:23 and whose name stands in the line of David at Ruth 4:20. Matthew Henry reads the leading standard as an early pledge of the sceptre later given to David.
Numbers 10:13
“Rather, And they journeyed (or, set forth) in the order of precedence according to (i. e. established by) the commandment of the Lord, etc., and described in Num 10:14-28.”
Barnes explains that each camp held three tribal hosts, and each tribe had its own smaller divisions under it. Judah's camp was the largest at 186,400 men, set to march first at Numbers 2:9. Tradition, Barnes reports, gave its standard a lion.
Numbers 10:14
“The standard - of Judah - See this order of marching explained at large on Numbers 2 (note). The following is the order in which this vast company proceeded in their march: - Judah Issachar Zebulun Gershonites, and Merarites carrying the tabernacle. Reuben Simeon Gad The Kohathites with the sanctuary. Ephraim Manasseh Benjamin Dan Asher Naphtali.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 10:14
“The leading standard, now lodged with that tribe, was an earnest of the sceptre which in David's time should be committed to it, and looked further to the captain of our salvation, of whom it was likewise foretold that unto him should the gathering of the people be.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 10:15-17
Issachar and Zebulun complete the east standard, and then the tent itself comes down. Gershon and Merari carry the structure directly behind Judah on the six wagons given them at Numbers 7:7-8, which puts the frame of the tabernacle six tribes ahead of the holy things it houses. Verse 21 gives the reason for that spacing.
Numbers 10:15
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Issachar was Nethaneel the son of Zuar. See Gill on Num 10:14.”
Eliab and the 57,400 men of Zebulun close the camp of Judah, with Issachar ahead of them. Gill notes that all three tribes of this camp were sons of Leah. The tabernacle frame followed them, in Clarke's order.
Numbers 10:16
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Zebulun was Eliab the son of Helon. See Gill on Num 10:14.”
Matthew Henry says the tent came down as soon as the cloud lifted, and the six carts of Numbers 7 carried its bulkier parts. He reads the frequent moving of the tabernacle as a sign that the ceremonial order would itself pass, as Hebrews 8:13 says of the first covenant. The tent was built to move.
Numbers 10:18-20
Reuben, Simeon and Gad move next, the south standard of Numbers 2:10-16. Reuben was the firstborn and walks fourth in the column, which Genesis 49:3-4 had explained and Numbers 2 had already fixed. The order of the march is the order of the camp down to the last name, so the arrangement holds when the nation is in motion.
Simeon marched second in the southern camp with 59,300 men, the largest tribe of that camp. Gill notes that Reuben and Simeon were sons of the same mother, so Simeon would follow his eldest brother willingly. Matthew Henry reads Shelumiel as God is peace.
Numbers 10:19
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Simeon was Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai. See Gill on Num 10:18.”
Gad closes the southern camp, and behind it came the Kohathites with the holy objects in verse 21. Eliasaph's 45,650 men were the last soldiers before the ark in Clarke's order of march. Gill notes that Gad was the son of Leah's servant Zilpah.
Numbers 10:20
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Gad was Eliasaph the son of Deuel. See Gill on Num 10:18.”
The Kohathites carry the holy objects on their shoulders, since Numbers 7:9 gave them no wagons, and at 2 Samuel 6:3-7 that rule is set aside and a man dies. They walk six tribes behind the frame of the tent, and the last clause gives the reason: “the tabernacle was to be set up before their arrival”. The house stands ready before its furniture arrives.
Numbers 10:21
“And they (that is, says the margin, the Gershonites and Merarites) did set up the tabernacle against they came; and perhaps it is expressed thus generally because, if there was occasion, not those Levites only, but the other Israelites that were in the first squadron, lent a hand to the tabernacle to hasten the rearing of it up, even before they set up their own tents.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 10:22-24
Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin make the west standard of Numbers 2:18-24, and all three descend from Rachel. Ephraim goes before Manasseh here, the order Jacob set with crossed hands at Genesis 48:14-20 over Joseph's objection. The three captains are the same men who brought the offerings on days seven, eight and nine in Numbers 7.
Numbers 10:22
“And the standard of the camp of the children of Ephraim set forward according to their armies,.... Next followed the standard of the camp of Ephraim, under which were Manasseh and Benjamin, Num 10:23, and over his host was Elishama the son of Ammihud; over whom were the same captains, as in Num 2:18.”
Manasseh marched second in the western camp, which Matthew Henry places directly behind the ark and the holy objects. Its 32,200 men made it the smallest tribe in the count of Numbers 2, as Gill reckons. Henry reads Gamaliel's name as God is the reward.
Numbers 10:23
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Manasseh was Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur. See Gill on Num 10:22.”
Benjamin closes the camp of Ephraim, which followed the ark. Matthew Henry hears Psalm 80:2 recalling this company, since it names Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh together. The psalm asks God to rally His mighty power before them and come to save.
Numbers 10:24
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Benjamin was Abidan the son of Gideoni. See Gill on Num 10:22.”
Numbers 10:25-28
Dan, Asher and Naphtali close the column as the north standard of Numbers 2:25-31. Rereward is the rear guard, and the older commentators note that the Hebrew behind it carries the sense of a gathering party, the men who took up what the camps ahead had left. Verse 28 closes the roll with a summary, and the whole list from verse 14 repeats Numbers 2 without altering a name or a position.
Asher's 41,500 men marched in the rear guard. Matthew Henry calls this rear camp the gathering host, which took up the weak, the unclean and all who fell behind on the march. Henry reads Pagiel's name as an encounter with God.
Numbers 10:26
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Asher was Pagiel the son of Ocran. See Gill on Num 10:25.”
Naphtali's 53,400 men were the last tribe in the column. John Wesley reckons Dan's camp the strongest after Judah's, placed in the rear so the tabernacle was best guarded where the danger was greatest. Ahira also brought the last offering, on the twelfth day of Numbers 7.
Numbers 10:27
“And over the host of the tribe of the children of Naphtali was Ahira the son of Enan. See Gill on Num 10:25.”
Clarke sets out the column as Judah, Issachar and Zebulun, then the Gershonites and Merarites with the tent, then Reuben, Simeon and Gad, then the Kohathites, then the camps of Ephraim and Dan. Matthew Henry reads the repeated mention of the LORD's command as an answer to the later charge that Israel wandered lost. Every step was ordered.
Come with us, and we will do you good
Numbers 10:29-30
Who Hobab is has long been argued, since the Hebrew word for father-in-law covers several relations by marriage. Barnes reads him as Reuel’s son and Moses’ brother-in-law, while Jamieson, Fausset and Brown identify Reuel with Jethro and take Hobab for his son. Moses offers a share in a promise, “Come with us, and we will treat you well,” and Hobab refuses for “my own land and my own people.”
Numbers 10:29
“Hobab, the son of Raguel - Or Reuel Exo 2:18. Reuel was probably not identical with Jethro: and Hobab was the brother-in-law, not the father-in-law, of Moses; the Hebrew word translated in the King James Version “father-in-law,” signifying simply any relation by marriage (Exo 3:1 note). Hobab Jdg 1:16; Jdg 4:11 eventually accompanied the Israelites and obtained a settlement with them in the land of Canaan. Hobab and Jethro may have been brethren and sons of Reuel.”
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 10:29
“And therefore this Hobab is not Jethro, but his son, which may seem more probable, because Jethro was old and unfit to travel, and desirous, as may well be thought, to die in his own country, whither he returned, Exod. xviii, 27, but Hobab was young and fitter for these journeys, and therefore entreated by Moses to stay and bear them company.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 10:29
“Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite--called also Reuel (the same as Jethro [Ex 2:18, Margin]). Hobab, the son of this Midianite chief and brother-in-law to Moses, seems to have sojourned among the Israelites during the whole period of their encampment at Sinai and now on their removal proposed returning to his own abode.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Matthew Henry notes that the Midianites came from Abraham through Keturah, so Hobab was of Abraham's line and still turned homeward. Gill likens his refusal to the son at Matthew 21:29 who said he would not go and later changed his mind and went. Clarke holds that Hobab changed his mind.
Numbers 10:30
“And he said unto him, I will not go,.... Which was a very peremptory answer, he seemed determined, and at a point about it for the present, though it is, probable he afterwards changed his mind, like the young man in the parable, Mat 21:29, but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred; which were prevailing motives with him, his native country, his relations, and father's house; to this resolution he came, both because of his substance, and because of his family, as Jarchi.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 10:30
“I will not go; but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred - From the strong expostulations in Num 10:31 and Num 10:32, and from Jdg 1:16; Jdg 4:11, and 1Sa 15:6, it is likely that Hobab changed his mind; or that, if he did go back to Midian, he returned again to Israel, as the above scriptures show that his posterity dwelt among the Israelites in Canaan.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 10:31-32
Moses asks Hobab to “serve as our eyes” soon after Numbers 9:17-23 made the cloud their guide, and the text sets the two side by side. Barnes reads the phrase as a desert proverb for one who knows where water, fuel and pasture lie, and Henry thinks Moses meant to give Hobab a use among them. Verse 32 offers him a share of “whatever good things the LORD gives us.”
Numbers 10:31
“Thou mayest be to us instead of eyes - A proverbial expression still in use in the East. Hobab would indicate the spots where water, fuel, and pasture might be found, or warn them of the dangers from hurricanes, and point out localities infested by robbers.”
Matthew Henry draws from the promise that a man can give only what he receives from God. Hobab's reply goes unrecorded, and Henry takes the silence as consent. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold that he left and settled in his own district.
Numbers 10:32
“Note, [1.] We can give only what we receive. We can do no more service and kindness to our friends than God is pleased to put it into the power of our hand to do. This is all we dare promise, to do good as God shall enable us. [2.] Those that share with God's Israel in their labours and hardships shall share with them in their comforts and honours.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Rise up, O LORD, and scatter thine enemies
Numbers 10:33-34
For three days after leaving the mountain the ark travels ahead “to seek a resting place for them”, while Numbers 2:17 and verse 21 put it in the middle of the column. Barnes marks the difference, and both statements stand in the same chapter. The cloud is over them by day, as at Exodus 13:21, and Numbers 9 had made it the rule for every move.
Numbers 10:33
“Three days’ journey - Probably a technical expression for such a distance as could not be traversed in a single day, and therefore not without intervals of encampment and due provision: compare Gen 30:36; Exo 3:18; Exo 5:3; Exo 8:27; Exo 15:22. The technical use of the phrase “Sabbath-day’s journey” for another average distance, Act 1:12, is similar. The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them - From Num 10:21; Num 2:17 it would appear that the usual place of the ark during the march was in the midst of the host.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 10:33
“And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey,...., From Mount Sinai, so called, because the Lord descended upon it, and gave the law from it; so the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan,"from the mount on which the glory of the Lord (or of his Shechinah or divine Majesty) was revealed.''This they left, after they had been nearly twelve months about it, and travelled three days' journey from it before the cloud rested, so as to abide, otherwise is stopped no doubt to give them time to eat their food, and take sleep and rest.”
John Wesley supplies by night as well, from the pattern Numbers 9:16 describes, and he tells readers to fill out one passage from another. He adds that the cloud stayed over the ark whether it stood or moved. The ark and the cloud made one sign of God's presence.
Numbers 10:34
“By day - And by night too, as was expressed before. So we must learn to compare places of scripture, and to supply the defects of one out of another, as we do in all authors.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Moses spoke this whenever the ark set out, and Psalm 68:1 takes it up with “His enemies are scattered”, sung over the ark in David’s day. Scribes set an inverted letter before verse 35 and after verse 36, for a reason still disputed. Ancient Jewish teachers treated the two verses as a small book, which would give the Torah seven books.
Numbers 10:35
“Each forward movement and each rest of the ark was made to bear a sacramental character. The one betokened the going forth of God against His enemies; the other, His gathering of His own people to Himself: the one was the pledge of victory, the other the earnest of repose. Num 10:36 may be translated: “Restore” (i. e. to the land which their fathers sojourned in), “O Lord, the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel.” (Compare Psa 85:4, where the verb in the Hebrew is the same.)”
The resting sentence asks God to “Return” to the people, and “countless thousands” is literally ten thousand thousands. Barnes reads the line as a plea that the LORD restore the ten thousands of Israel, taking the verb in its sense at Psalm 85:4. Solomon prays the resting half of this pair at 2 Chronicles 6:41, and Psalm 132:8 keeps it as “Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place”.
Numbers 10:36
“Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel - These were the words spoken by Moses, at the moment the divisions halted in order to pitch their tents. In reference to this subject, and the history with which it is connected, the 68th Psalm seems to have been composed, though applied by David to the bringing the ark from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem. See the notes on Psalm 68 (note). Many thousands, literally the ten thousand thousands.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Law and itinerary in one chapter: the statute of the silver trumpets, then the order of the first march, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Two trumpets and one, the long blast and the alarm | The statute works by matched pairs. Both trumpets sounded together call the whole congregation to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and one trumpet calls the leaders alone. A man knows from the sound whether he is the one being called. A long blast convenes the assembly and a short blast moves a camp, and verse 7 states the difference outright. The chapter's exposition note on verses 5 to 7 records that the Hebrew text names two short-blast signals while the Septuagint carries signals for the west and the north as well.Albert Barnes and Adam Clarke, Notes on the Old Testament and Commentary on the Bible, the works the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 10:5-7 is written from. | Numbers 10:3, Numbers 10:4, Numbers 10:5-6, Numbers 10:7 |
| The column called out standard by standard | Verses 14 to 28 walk the whole camp past the reader in marching order, four standards of three tribes each, with the man over every tribe named. The roll repeats the arrangement of Numbers 2 without altering a name or a position, so the order of the camp at rest is the order of the camp in motion. The carrying Levites stand inside the list in two places, the Gershonites and the Merarites with the frame of the tent behind Judah, and the Kohathites with the holy things six tribes later.John Gill and Albert Barnes, Exposition of the Old Testament and Notes on the Old Testament, the works the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 10:25-28 is written from. | Numbers 10:14-16, Numbers 10:17, Numbers 10:18-20, Numbers 10:21, Numbers 10:22-24, Numbers 10:25-28 |
| Set out under their standard | One sentence pattern carries the march. Each division sets out under its standard with its commander named. The phrase returns at verse 14, verse 18, verse 22 and verse 25, which is four times in the Berean text of this chapter. The repetition is what makes a long list readable at speed, since a hearer counts four standards rather than twelve tribes. | Numbers 10:14, Numbers 10:18, Numbers 10:22, Numbers 10:25 |
| Moses asks Hobab to be their eyes | The march list stops for a conversation. Moses offers his Midianite relative a share in a promise rather than wages. Hobab answers that he is going back to his own land and his own people. Moses asks a second time, on the ground that Hobab knows where the camp should stop in the wilderness. Albert Barnes reads the words about eyes as a desert saying for the man who knows where water, fuel and pasture lie. Numbers records no answer to the second asking, though Judges 1:16 and Judges 4:11 have his descendants settled in the land.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 10:31-32. | Numbers 10:29, Numbers 10:30, Numbers 10:31-32 |
| Rise up and Return, the two sentences over the ark | The chapter closes on a matched pair of sentences. One is said whenever the ark sets out, and it asks that the enemies of the LORD be scattered. The other is said when the ark comes to rest, and it asks the LORD to return to the thousands of Israel. Psalm 68:1 opens with the words of the first, and Psalm 132:8 keeps the second in nearly the same words. The pair outlives the wilderness and is used over the ark in Israel's later worship. The chapter's exposition note on verse 35 records that the Hebrew scribes set an inverted letter before verse 35 and after verse 36, and that the reason for the mark is disputed.Adam Clarke and John Gill, Commentary on the Bible and Exposition of the Old Testament, the works the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 10:35 is written from. | Numbers 10:35, Numbers 10:36 |
The historical value
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter dates itself. Numbers 10:11 dates the lifting of the cloud to the twentieth day of the second month of the second year. The dossier of this site takes that verse as the anchor for Israel's departure from Sinai. The instruments are described closely enough to be recognised, two trumpets of hammered silver made for calling the congregation and for moving the camps. The background commentary this book already cites for the chapter records a pair of silver and bronze trumpets found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, short straight instruments with a flared bell.
The debated points
Who Hobab was has been argued for centuries, because the Hebrew word rendered father in law covers a range of relations by marriage. Albert Barnes and John Wesley read Hobab as the son of Reuel and the brother in law of Moses. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown identify Reuel with Jethro and take Hobab for his son. The chapter's exposition note on verses 29 and 30 carries both readings and settles neither.
How many alarms were blown is a second question. The Hebrew text names two, one that moves the east standard and one that moves the south. Albert Barnes and Adam Clarke reckon that a third and a fourth were blown for the west and the north, on the ground that the Septuagint carries those signals as well.
Where the ark travelled is a third. Numbers 2:17 and verse 21 of this chapter put the holy things in the middle of the host. Verse 33 has the ark going before the people for three days to seek a resting place. Barnes marks the difference, and both statements stand in the same chapter.
The use made of the chapter later in Scripture
The trumpet statute is carried into Israel's later history. Numbers 31:6 sends Phinehas to battle with the trumpets in his hand, and 2 Chronicles 5:12 has a hundred and twenty priests sounding them at the temple. At 2 Chronicles 13:12 Abijah points to the priests with the sounding trumpets as the reason Judah cannot be fought. The two sentences over the ark travel as well. Psalm 68:1 opens with the first, Psalm 132:8 keeps the second in nearly the same words, and Solomon prays the resting half at the dedication of the temple in 2 Chronicles 6:41.
The divine connection
The chapter takes the decision to move out of human hands. The cloud is taken up and the nation sets out, which is the rule laid down at Numbers 9:17-23, and no man gives the order. The trumpets are put in the hands of the sons of Aaron and nobody else. Both of their uses are called a reminder before God, the short blasts in battle at verse 9 and the blasts over the offerings at verse 10. The same instrument that moves the camp is the instrument that asks God to remember it.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, one of the works the chapter's published exposition notes on Numbers 10:1-2 and on Numbers 10:11-12 are written from.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.