Numbers 20–21

CHAPTER 20

No Water for the Congregation

¹Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the ^awilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there.

^2aNow there was no water for the congregation, ^band they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.

^3aThe people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “^bIf only we had breathed our last ^cwhen our brothers breathed their last before Yahweh!

⁴“^aWhy then have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die ¹here?

⁵“And why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us into this evil place? ^aIt is not a place of ¹grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.”

⁶Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and ^afell on their faces. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared to them;

⁷and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

⁸“Take ^athe rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.”

Moses Strikes the Rock

⁹So Moses took the rod ^afrom before Yahweh, just as He had commanded him;

¹⁰and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “^aListen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?”

¹¹Then Moses raised high his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and ^awater came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.

¹²But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “^aBecause you did not believe Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

¹³Those were the waters of ^1aMeribah ²because the sons of Israel contended with Yahweh, and He proved Himself holy among them.

Edom Refuses Passage

¹⁴From Kadesh Moses then sent messengers to ^athe king of Edom: “Thus your brother Israel has said, ‘You ^bknow all the hardship that has befallen us,

¹⁵that our fathers went down to Egypt, and we stayed in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians treated us and our fathers badly.

¹⁶‘So ^awe cried out to Yahweh, and He heard our voice and sent ^ban angel and brought us out from Egypt; now behold, we are at Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory.

¹⁷‘Please ^alet us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard; we will not even drink water from a well. We will go along the king’s highway; we will not turn to the right or to the left until we pass through your territory.’”

^18aEdom, however, said to him, “You shall not pass through ¹us, lest I come out to meet you with the sword.”

¹⁹Again, the sons of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway, and if I and ^amy livestock do drink any of your water, ^bthen I will ¹pay its price. Let me only pass through on my feet, ²nothing else.”

²⁰But he said, “^aYou shall not pass through.” And Edom came out to meet him with a heavy ¹force and with a strong hand.

^21aThus Edom refused to allow Israel to pass through his territory; ^bso Israel turned away from him.

²²Then they set out from ^aKadesh, and the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

The Death of Aaron

²³And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron at ^aMount Hor by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

²⁴“Aaron will be ^agathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the sons of Israel because ^byou rebelled against My ¹command at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵“Take Aaron and his son ^aEleazar and bring them up to Mount Hor;

²⁶and strip Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar. So Aaron will be ^agathered to his people and will die there.”

²⁷So Moses did just as Yahweh had commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

²⁸And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and ^aput them on his son Eleazar, and ^bAaron died there on the mountain top. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

²⁹So all the congregation saw that Aaron breathed his last, and all the house of Israel wept for Aaron thirty ^adays.

CHAPTER 21

Destruction of Canaanite Cities

¹Then the Canaanite, the king of ^aArad, who lived in the ¹Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of ²Atharim, and he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

²So ^aIsrael made a vow to Yahweh and said, “If You will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”

³Then Yahweh heard the voice of Israel and gave the Canaanites over; so they devoted them and their cities to destruction. Thus the name of the place was called ^1aHormah.

⁴Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way to the ¹Red Sea, to ^ago around the land of Edom; and the ²people became impatient on the way.

⁵And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “^aWhy have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no ¹food and no water, and ^2bwe loathe this miserable food.”

The Bronze Serpent

^6aSo Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and ^bthey bit the people so that ^cmany people of Israel died.

^7aThen the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you; ^bpray to Yahweh, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses prayed for the people.

⁸Then Yahweh said to Moses, “¹Make a ^afiery serpent and set it on a standard; and it will be that everyone who is bitten and looks at it, will live.”

⁹And Moses made a ^abronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it happened, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

^10aThen the sons of Israel set out and camped in Oboth.

¹¹They then set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness which is opposite Moab, east toward the sunrise.

^12aFrom there they set out and camped in ¹Wadi Zered.

¹³From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorites, ^afor the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

¹⁴Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of Yahweh,

“Waheb in Suphah,

And the wadis of the Arnon,

¹⁵And the slope of the wadis

That extends to the site of ^aAr,

And leans to the border of Moab.”

^16aAnd from there they continued to ¹Beer, that is the well where Yahweh said to Moses, “Assemble the people, that I may give them water.”

^17aThen Israel sang this song:

“Spring up, O well! Sing to it!

¹⁸“The well, which the leaders dug,

Which the nobles of the people carved out,

With the scepter and with their staffs.”

And from the wilderness they continued to Mattanah,

¹⁹and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

²⁰and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the land of Moab, at the top of Pisgah which overlooks the ¹wasteland.

Sihon and Og Struck Down

^21aThen Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying,

²²“^aLet me pass through your land. We will not turn off into field or vineyard; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king’s highway until we have passed through your border.”

^23aBut Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border. So Sihon gathered all his people and went out to meet Israel in the wilderness and came to ^bJahaz and fought against Israel.

²⁴Then ^aIsrael ¹struck him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon; for the ^bborder of the sons of Ammon was ²Jazer.

²⁵And Israel took all these cities, and ^aIsrael lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all her ¹towns.

²⁶For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites. Now it was he who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

²⁷Therefore those who use proverbs say,

“Come to Heshbon! Let it be built!

So let the city of Sihon be established.

²⁸“^aFor a fire went forth from Heshbon,

A flame from the town of Sihon;

It devoured ^bAr of Moab,

The ^1cdominant ²heights of the Arnon.

²⁹“^aWoe to you, O Moab!

You perish, O people of ^bChemosh!

^cHe has given his sons as fugitives,

^dAnd his daughters into captivity,

To an Amorite king, Sihon.

³⁰“But we have cast them down,

Heshbon perishes as far as ^aDibon,

And we have made desolate even to Nophah,

Which reaches to Medeba.”

³¹Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.

³²And Moses sent to spy out ^aJazer, and they captured its towns and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.

^33aThen they turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went out to meet them, he and all his people for battle at ^bEdrei.

³⁴But Yahweh said to Moses, “^aDo not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”

³⁵So ^athey struck down him and his sons and all his people, until ¹there was no survivor remaining for him; and they possessed his land.