And they removed from Haradah, and pitched in Makheloth.
And they journeyed from Haradah, and encamped in Makheloth.
And they journey from Haradah, and encamp in Makheloth;
And they removed from Haradah, and encamped in Makheloth.
Numbers — Israel on the move — and Israel on the ground in rebellion. Two censuses bracket thirty-eight wilderness years; God's faithfulness holds where the people's does not.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
Voices1
From there a stage is made at Maceloth [Makheloth], which means "from the beginning." For the person who strives for contemplation contemplates the beginning of things, or rather he refers everything to him who was in the beginning, nor is there any time when he abandons that beginning.
Origen of Alexandria· HOMILIES ON NUMBERS 27:12, 253patristic
