Numbers 10

[NOTE.—These Trumpets, although not a part of the furniture of the tabernacle, were kept in the holy place. The command respecting their construction and use is therefore appropriately recorded in this section.]

The Lord himself appoints the preparation of the trumpets by which the different signals for the people were to be given, that in all which they did as a people they might have the certainty they stood under God’s immediate guidance. Every assembling of the people or of the council, every expedition in war, was thereby marked as holy. Gerl.—The silver trumpets gave the gathering-signal, so that the people should always be attentive to the voice and will of God. For God would have the Israelites set in motion by their sound, so that they should commence everything either in war or in peace under his guidance and auspices. Their use was threefold—viz., to gather the people or the rulers to public assemblies; to move them against their enemies; and, thirdly, to announce the sacrifices and festivals. Civ.

The signals which regulated the breaking up of the camp and the march itself were of two kinds—those which proceeded from Jehovah, and those which were given by Moses or the priests. The former were made by means of the different positions assumed by the pillar of cloud and fire. It had come down upon the sanctuary on the occasion of its consecration. When it rose up from the tent, this was the signal on the part of Jehovah that the camp was to be broken up; and whenever it came down upon any spot, the Israelites saw in this a sign that they were to encamp upon that spot. But as this signal only presented itself to the eye, and could therefore be easily overlooked by many, another signal was added which appealed to the ear as well. For this purpose Moses provided, at the command of Jehovah, two silver trumpets. When both trumpets were blown, this was a sign for the whole congregation to assemble at the tabernacle. If only one was blown, it was a summons to the princes of the congregation to come to the tabernacle. When a blast was blown with both the trumpets, this was the signal for the whole congregation to break up the encampment. At the first blast the tents on the eastern side were struck; at the second those on the south side, and so forth. K.

70, had the golden candlestick and the golden table of the shew-bread, the silver trumpets, and the book of the Law taken out of the temple, and carried in triumph to Rome; and Vespasian lodged them in the temple which he had consecrated to the goddess of Peace! At the foot of Mount Palatine there are the ruins of an arch, on which the triumph of Titus for his conquest of the Jews is represented, and on which the several monuments which were carried in the procession are sculptured, particularly the golden candlestick, the table of the shew-bread, and the two silver trumpets. [For cut of these, see New Testament, Vol. I., p. 651.]

These things had accomplished the end for which they were instituted, and were now of no further use. The glorious Personage typified by all this ancient apparatus had about seventy years before this made his appearance. The true light was come and the Holy Spirit poured out from on high; and therefore the golden candlestick by which they were typified was given up: the ever-during bread had been sent from heaven, and therefore the golden table, which bore its representative, the shew-bread, was now no longer needful: the joyful sound of the ever-lasting gospel was then published in the world; and therefore the silver trumpets that typified this were carried into captivity, and their sound was no more to be heard. Strange Providence but unutterable mercy of God! the Jews lost both the sign and the things signified; and that very people who destroyed the holy city and carried away the spoils of the temple were the first to receive the preaching of the Gospel, the light of salvation, and the bread of life! The Jews had these significant emblems to lead them to and prepare them for the things signified. They trusted in the former, and rejected the latter! God therefore deprived them of both, and gave up their temple to the spoilers, their land to desolation, and themselves to captivity and the sword. The heathens then carried away the emblems of their salvation, and God shortly gave unto those heathens that very salvation of which these things were the emblems! A. C.

OFFERINGS FOR THE SERVICE OF THE SANCTUARY: BEATEN OIL; RANSOM OR ATONEMENT MONEY; INCENSE; ANOINTING OIL; SHEW OR FACE BREAD.

No. 10 11 AND it came to pass in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, that the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the testimony. 12 And the children of Israel set forward according to their journeys out of the wilderness of 13 Sinai; and the cloud abode in the wilderness of Paran. And they first took their journey 14 according to the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses. And in the first place the standard of the camp of the children of Judah set forward according to their hosts: and over 15 his host was Nahshon the son of Amminadab. And over the host of the tribe of the children 16 of Issachar was Nethanel the son of Zuar. And over the host of the tribe of the children of 17 Zebulun was Eliab the son of Helon. And the tabernacle was taken down; and the sons of 18 Gershon and the sons of Merari, who bare the tabernacle, set forward. And the standard of the camp of Reuben set forward according to their hosts: and over his host was Elizur the 19 son of Shedeur. And over the host of the tribe of the children of Simeon was Shelumiel the 20 son of Zurishaddai. And over the host of the tribe of the children of Gad was Eliasaph the 21 son of Deuel. And the Kohathites set forward, bearing the sanctuary: and the other did set 22 up the tabernacle against they came. And the standard of the camp of the children of Ephraim set forward according to their hosts: and over his host was Elishama the son of 23 Ammihud. And over the host of the tribe of the children of Manasseh was Gamaliel the son 24 of Pedahzur. And over the host of the tribe of the children of Benjamin was Abidan the son 25 of Gideoni. And the standard of the camp of the children of Dan, which was the rearward of all the camps, set forward according to their hosts: and over his host was Ahiezer the son 26 of Ammishaddai. And over the host of the tribe of the children of Asher was Pagiel the son 27 of Ochran. And over the host of the tribe of the children of Naphtali was Ahira the son of 28 Enan. Thus were the journeyings of the children of Israel according to their hosts; and they set forward. 33 And they set forward from the mount of the LORD three days’ journey; and the ark of the covenant of the LORD went before them three days’ journey, to seek out a resting place for 34 them. And the cloud of the LORD was over them by day, when they set forward from the

35 camp. And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, O LORD, and 36 let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O LORD, unto the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel.

No. 33 16 And they journeyed from the wilderness of Sinai, and pitched in Kibroth-hattaavah.

The march out of Egypt to Mount Sinai occupied six weeks, making, with the fourteen days before the Passover, two months; and they were encamped before Sinai, receiving the Divine laws, for the remaining ten months of the first ecclesiastical year. The tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month (Abib) of the second year; and its dedication occupied that month. On the first day of the second month Moses began to number the people, and their encampment was broken up on the twentieth day of the second month of the second year. On that day the cloud of Jehovah’s presence was lifted up from the tabernacle, as the sign of departure; and the tabernacle itself was taken down. At the alarm blown by the two silver trumpets, which God had commanded to be made, each of the four camps set forward in its appointed order, and the host followed the cloud. P. S.

When the silver trumpets sounded, the tribe of Judah, mustering 74,600 fighting men, defiled forward from the east side of the camp, and led the van, followed by Issachar, with 54,400, and Zebulun, 57,400. Then came a division of the tribe of Levi, the descendants of Gershom and Merari, bearing the tabernacle, which was carefully taken down, and, thus moving after the advanced guard, might be set up, ready for the reception of the ark. Then Reuben, numbering 46,500; Simeon, 59,300; Gad, 45,650, broke up, and advanced from the southern part of the encampment. The second division of the Levites, the family of Kohath, next took their station, bearing the sanctuary and the ark, and all the sacred vessels, with the most religious care, lest any hands but those of Aaron and his assistants should touch a single part. All the males of the house of Levi amounted only to 22,000. Ephraim, 40,500; Manasseh, 32,200; Benjamin, 35,400, defiled, and formed the western wing of the encampment. Dan, 62,700; Asher, 41,500; Napthali, 53,400, brought up the rear. The whole number of fighting men was 603,550. This formidable army set forward, singing, “Rise up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered;” and thus—already furnished with their code of laws, irresistible both in their numbers and the promised assistance of their God—they marched onward to take possession of the fruitful land which had been promised as the reward of their toils. Milman.

After leaving Horeb, the Israelites marched northward, and traversing the grand gorge of El Watiyeh, turned to the east along the valleys of Zillegah and El Ain. Turning northward they entered the region of the Tih (Desert of Paran); and then proceeding onward across the great plains of limestone reached their halting-place at Kadesh-Barnea. The whole distance would be about one hundred and fifty miles, and for eleven days would be at the rate of nearly fourteen miles a day. Holland.

12. The wilderness of Paran. This tract comprised about one third of the entire extent of the peninsula, which lies between Egypt and Canaan, and is the eastern half of the great limestone plateau, which constitutes the centre of that peninsula. It was bounded on the north by the Canaanitish frontier; on the west by the brook or river of Egypt, which parted it from the other half of the plateau, the Wilderness of Shur; on the south by the great sand-belt, which sweeps across the peninsula in a northwardly-concave line, from gulf to gulf, and forms a broad demarcation between it and the cliffs of Sinai; and on the east by the northern portion of the Elanitic Gulf, and by the great valley of the Arabah, which divides it from the mountains of Edom. The Wilderness of Zin (to be carefully distinguished from that of Sin), forming the immediate boundary of Canaan, was its northeastern extremity; and it is thus that Kadesh is indifferently spoken of as in the Wilderness of Zin, or in that of Paran. The Wilderness of Paran is, on the whole, to European eyes, a blanched and dreary waste; intersected by watercourses, almost always dry except in the rainy season, and crossed by low ranges of horizontal hills which relieve but little the general monotony of its appearance. It does not exhibit the savage and frightful desolation of the Arabah; but neither, on the other hand, is it enlivened by the fertile valleys to be found amid the granite mountains of Sinai. Its soil is mostly strewn with pebbles, through which a slight coating of vegetation struggles; yet here and there level plains may be found in it of rich red earth fit for culture, or valleys abounding in shrubs and trees. Espin.

The whole district still bears the name Bádi et Tih, “the desert of the wanderings.” Its southern portion seems, as it were, driven in wedgeways into the Sinaitic peninsula proper, from which it is separated by a belt of sand. From the scene of the first year of Israel’s pilgrimage and of the Sinaitic legislation, the Tih might be entered by one of several passes through the mountains which form its southern boundary. The Et Tih itself “is a limestone plateau of irregular surface.” It may generally be described as “open plains of sand and gravel broken by a few valleys,” and is at present “nearly waterless, with the exception of a few springs, situated in the larger wadies,” which yield rather an admixture of sand and water than water. A. E.

After they had received the Law, and completed the year of discipline, and put everything in order for their journey, they turned northward, through the wadies of granite, into the wadies of sandstone, crossed the sandy plain of Debbet-er-ramleh between Sinai and Et-Tih, and, climbing the steep escarpment of the Tih plateau, began their wanderings. Post.

They went out of the wilderness of Sinai, and rested in the wilderness of Pavan. All our removes in this world are but from one wilderness to another. The changes which we think will be for the better do not always prove so; while we carry about with us wherever we go the common infirmities of human nature, we must expect wherever we go to meet with its common calamities; we should never be at rest, never at home, till we come to heaven, and all will be well there. H.

33. Three days’ journey.** There is not much room for doubt that it was a “three days’ journey” from Mount Sinai to their first resting-place; not that they marched day and night without stopping to rest; but that the first two nights they bivouacked, and on the third day they formally encamped. This is what we should gather from the text itself; and all outside examination as to the probabilities tends to confirm this view. H. C. T.

34. The cloud of the Lord was upon them by day. It would seem as if the cloud, which was luminous by night, dense and dark by day, spread itself upward and backward from over the ark, overshadowing the host as it followed. There is no doubt that it dwelt in the memory of the nation, and gave meaning to such expressions as the “shadow of the Almighty” (Ps. 91:1), and “the shadow of a cloud” (Is. 25:4, 5). R. W.

35, 36. “And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel.” Moses uttered a prayer of faith both in the marching and at the standing still. It was a petition from the mouth of the mediator of the covenant, and contained at the same time an earnest encouragement to the people themselves, reminding them of their entire dependence on God. Gect.

—Each forward movement of the ark betokened the going forth of God against his enemies; each rest his gathering of his own people to himself: the one was the pledge of victory, the other the earnest of repose. Espin.—When the ark and the cloud set forward, it was the Almighty God going on before to victory; when the ark and the cloud rested, it was the all-merciful God returning to protect and cherish his own. This is clearly recognized in the morning and evening prayer of Moses. The typical and spiritual character of that setting forward and that resting could not well have been lost upon any religious mind—that God going before us is the certain and abiding pledge of final victory, that God returning to us is the only hope of present safety. “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered.” The sixty-eighth Psalm, which we have learned to associate with the wonders of Pentecost and the triumphs of the Church on earth, seems to be an expansion of Moses’ morning prayer. R. W.

Unless the ark went with them, and the cloud of the Divine glory with it, they could have neither direction nor safety; unless the ark rested with them, and the cloud of glory with it, they could have neither rest nor comfort. How necessary the Word of God and the Spirit of God, for direction, comfort, and defence. A. C.—Here we have two prayers—one for the hours of warfare and journeying, another for the hours of repose and recreation. Both turn to the one thing, the symbolic presence of God in that ark of the covenant. Is it not beautiful to think that the One Presence takes any shape that a man wants? When he needs it to be a spear and a shield, it is a spear and a shield for him; when he needs it to be a pillow on which to rest his head, it is a pillow on which he reposes. A. M.

Nu. 33:16. The first station after Sinai in the list of stations is Kibroth-hattaavah. It is evident from the narrative that the tabernacle was set up at Kibroth-hattaavah, and that the people remained there a month or more. There were dug “the graves of lust”—for those who died as a penalty of their gluttonous and faithless lusting; and Taberah (the place of burning) was the name given to the rear of that vast camping field. Palmer thinks that he has discovered the site of that encampment, at a place called by the Arabs “Erweis el-Ebeirig,” some thirty miles, more or less. H. C. T.

It would be natural that the host should move north-easterly out of Wady Sheikh six miles from Jebel Músa, along the great thoroughfare through Wady Sa’al. The region of Erweis el-Ebeirig, with its mysterious remains, its line of passage for great flocks of birds, and its vicinity to Hudherah, might answer to Kibroth-hattaavah; and the copious spring of Ain Hudherah represents the etymology of Hazeroth. S. C. B.

THE HEBREW ELEMENT A MAIN CONSTITUENT OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. ITS DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTIC, THE INSTINCT OF STATICAL ORDER.

Modern civilization has received its impulse, not from Greece and Rome only, but from the ancient people of Palestine also, and, indeed, from these last mainly. This inherited influence has not been confined to the impartation of a religion; for the Hebrew mind has entered very largely among the constituents of our secular civilization, and its presence may be traced where least we might imagine it to exist. This suffused influence needs only to be pointed out to be recognized.

It is trite to say that the Hellenic people, and these without a rival, possessed the instinct of symmetry and the consciousness of beauty. This prerogative of the race developed itself, not only in matchless works of art—in its sculpture and its architecture, but also in its abstract and speculative philosophy. Symmetry in Form and symmetry in THOUGHT were the two excellent products of the one endowment of the race. It is also trite to say that the Roman stock—whenceover derived—signalized itself in a wholly different manner. The race-endowment of the Roman people was the instinct of ORDER—order Dynamic; and this distinction evolved itself in the several modes of administrative ability. The outspeak of this gift was command; its passion was power; its means was military organization, and its result was extended empire.

In thus following the method of comparison, we find the distinctive characteristic of the Hebrew race to be the instinct of ORDER; not dynamic, as the Roman, but STATICAL ORDER; and, as such, it has suffused itself in different degrees among the modern European nations. This instinct of statical order, as the endowment of the Hebrew race, the evidences of which are marked and unquestionable, evolved itself in its clanship, carried out with a rigorous adherence to its principle; and also in adjustments, and in administrative managements, and in fitnesses, either among material objects, or in the constantly recurrent operations of life ecclesiastical, or life secular. Order in position, order in daily observances: order was the law of a tranquil, a peaceful, a regulated, and unambitious perpetuity. Thus it stood contrasted with the Roman dynamic order, the law of which was restlessness, onward movement, and progress.

It is manifest that, in whatever way so strange an event had come about, a vast multitude—mainly the men of one race, but not wholly so—had come to spread itself up and down through the wadies of the Sinaitic peninsula—a great multitude indeed, but it was not a crowd. This people, by the fixed usages of centuries, had long before divided and subdivided itself, on the patriarchal platform, into clans, and these clans into families, and the chief of each clan had his subordinates, and each family had its head, and the head had its subalterns. Each separate tribe constituting this people was swathed in ancestral loyalties—in its own traditions—in its rivalries. The mass was thoroughly an organic mass; and the cementing principle possessed binding energy enough to afford ample security against any widespread confusion or social disintegration. Seditions might and did spring up here and there; but there would not occur a national chaos. Recent national sufferings had imparted strength to every bond; and, in a word, as if in preparation for the shocks and throes of the new life in the desert, the Hebrew instinct of order—statical—had recently become intense in a degree that had not before been known.

This people had become wealthy—not in herds only, but in all kinds of personal appointments. It possessed the costumes and the decorations of superfluous wealth. The mechanical and the decorative arts had long been in practice among them: quite familiar were they with the luxuries of an advanced material civilization; and they were adepts in the laborious arts of common life. The movable wealth of the people, and the appurtenances of rank, they had brought with them. As to the wealth they had created upon the Egyptian soil, they received from their masters a bare tithe of its value in jewelry. These were the visible or exterior conditions of this ousted multitude.

But the people had also their inner habitudes, and these got expression in the tone and purport of those ordinances—in those regulations, mixedly religious and secular—in those forecasting appointments, which were to be carried out, years later, in a land of rest. In all these legal elements, whether sacred or civil, the race-instinct makes itself manifest; and thus, also, was it in the specialties, and in the measurements, and in the fitting of every hook to its eye and of every cord to its pole, of every vessel to its use and of every movement to its movement—everything was in harmony with and was an expression of statical order. Now read the Book of Numbers with this key in your hand; and while keeping in view analogous instances occurring in later histories, give license for a moment to the imagination while you bring before you, by the various aids of modern travel and of pictorial illustration, first, the Sinaitic scenery which the people were at this moment leaving; and then the broad expanses of the northward table-land—the wilderness of Paran. I see—as if I were carried back through the forty centuries—I see the host, for it is just now pushing its upward way through the passes of Jebel et Tih, and it is fanning itself out, in a predetermined order, upon the flats of this upland. What I see is not a rabble, is not a promiscuous crowd or horde; it is not a deluge of struggling, countless human forms; but it is a sample of what may be done in marshalling the millions of a people whose native instinct is order, and whose daily habitudes render conformity thereto far more easy to them than confusion could be.

“Who is this that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?” Thus I read the record: “When the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran, and the host took their journey according to the commandment of the Lord, by the hand of Moses. In the first place went the standard of the camp of Judah, according to their armies: and over his host was Nahshon, the son of Amminadab”—and so, and so, on, and on, and on, in their turns, came all the tribes and families of Israel. “Thus were the journeyings of the sons of Israel according to their armies, when they set forward.”

Now, if such passages do not breathe the very life of reality—if they be not pre-eminently exact and historical, then there is nothing true, there is nothing real, in all the hundred folios upon which our modern industry has employed itself these three centuries past. Not only are these Pentateuchal records manifestly real and true, but they carry with them, to the conviction of every unsophisticated mind, that inimitable impression of grandeur, that aspect of sublimity which no art can counterfeit, and which arises of itself to accompany and to signalize those notable occasions when the movements of vast multitudes of the human family are seen to be governed, in tranquil silence, by an instinctive sense of order. Here now before us a great people is outspreading its ranks—bright and banner-led, upon a scene fitting the action. The stony plain may vibrate far beneath the measured tread of these millions of men; but as the heaven above them is clear, and as the one cloud sharply outlines itself against the burning azure, so are the human masses free from din and uproar, or confusion—one voice in front is listened to, and this is the utterance:

“And when the ark set forward, Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel.” Isaac Taylor.

MURMURING PUNISHED BY FIRE AT TABERAH, AND MOSES INTERCEDES. A SECOND MURMURING, AND MOSES COMPLAINS TO GOD. SEVENTY ELDERS ENDUED WITH THE PROPHETIC GIFT. QUAILS FOLLOWED BY PLAGUE AT KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH

It seems evident that Hobab was in fact the brother-in-law, not father-in-law of Moses, and the Hebrew word signifies simply any relation by marriage. Hobab is described as the “son of Reuel;” and the desire of Moses to obtain his services as guide through the wilderness indicates that he was younger than Moses’s father-in-law could now have been. It is stated in Ex. 18:27 that Jethro quitted the Israelites before they reached Sinai, to return to his own land; while it appears from the passage now before us compared with Judges 1:16; 4:11, that Hobab eventually accompanied them, and obtained a settlement with them in the land of Canaan. Espin.—It seems probable that Hobab was the son of Jethro, and that when the father, being aged, went to his own land (Ex. 18:27), he left his son Hobab with Moses, as Barzillai left Chimham with David; and the same word signifies both a father-in-law and a brother-in-law. Hobab stopped contentedly with Israel while they encamped at Mount Sinai near his own country; but now that they were removing, he was for going back to his own country and kindred and his father’s house. H.

Moses offers the inducement of great good to the man whom he invites to accompany him—one near to him, whose society he had daily enjoyed while he abode in the tents of Midian. For this good Hobab had not altogether to wait for forty years. He realized much of it even in the wilderness—more than he could have enjoyed among his own people and in his own land. It was good to be among a people under God’s special covenant. He had opportunities unattainable elsewhere of realizing the presence of God among his people. The air he breathed, the sights he saw every day—the sounds he heard—all were full of God. And all tended to build up his faith, to cheer his heart, to keep him from being “discouraged because of the way.” We need not apply this. It is applied, even by the terms in which it is expressed. In the conviction of the high privileges which belong to their condition the people of God may freely and confidently say to those who go with them, that it shall be good for them—good for them in the wilderness—and good for them in the promised land. Kit.

It is no idle fancy which sees in all this a parable of the Christian faith and the Christian profession. We also look for an inheritance and rest. As truly as the tribes in the wilderness, we (unless we have believed in vain) have turned our backs upon Egypt, and have set our faces toward the better country. We are journeying. We are strangers and pilgrims. “Come thou with us.” Even under the Old Testament the Church had an open door and a welcome for all who desired to enter. In point of fact, a considerable proportion of those who constituted the Hebrew commonwealth at any given time were of Gentile descent. Moses did not act without warrant when he invited Hobab to come in—he and all his. Binnie.—The inducement was, “we will do thee good.” Not of their own ability or of their own abundance, but by communicating unto him the good things which God should bestow on them. We may fearlessly say to the child of this world, “we will do thee good.” As a fact men find peace, support, sympathy, consolation here—heaven hereafter—in the society of the faithful, not out of it. R. W.—And what argument can be more powerful with us to take God’s people for our people than this, that God hath spoken good concerning them. It is good having fellowship with those that have fellowship with God (1 John 1:3), and going with those with whom God is (Zech. 8:23). H.

31. “Forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes.” It is an obvious conclusion, from the reasons here urged by Moses, that the many and wonderful promises of Divine guidance and Divine direction did not supersede in his eyes the use of all available human aids. In the broken and difficult country which they were to traverse, which had been familiar to Hobab from his youth, there would be scope enough for all his ability as a guide. And it would seem that it was just this prospect of being really useful to the people of Israel that prevailed with Hobab. R. W.—The Divine guidance of the pillar of the cloud would not render superfluous the human conductor who could indicate the spots where water, fuel, and pasture might be found, and the dangers from hurricanes. Probably indeed the pillar prescribed only the general direction of the journey. Nor would it be according to the general analogy of God’s dealings had he miraculously rendered his people independent of such aids from human experience and sagacity as were within their reach. Espin.—Parties took several journeys while the host lay still. They therefore needed such a person as Hobab, who was well acquainted with the desert, to direct these particular excursions. What man cannot under the direction of God’s providence do for himself, God will do in the way of especial mercy. He could have directed them to the fountains and to the places of fuel; but Hobab can do this, therefore let Hobab be employed: and let Hobab know, for his encouragement, that while he is serving others in the way of God’s providence he is securing his own best interests. On these grounds Hobab should be invited; and for this reason Hobab should go. Man cannot do God’s work; and God will not do the work which he has qualified and commanded man to perform. Thus then the Lord is ever seen, even while he is helping man by man. A. C.—Moses had the Divine signal of the moving pillar and cloud of fire, but he would not neglect any subordinate aids that were available. An important lesson is here for our guidance both in private and public life. D. F.

Moses said, “Thou mayest be to us instead of eyes; and what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.” There was true friendship, consisting in the interchange of mutual help. Those are ever the most profitable fellowships in which the weakness of one party is fortified by the strength of the other. Moses was ears to Hobab to hear what the Lord might say, and to share with him the knowledge which he thus obtained; and Hobab was eyes to Moses to communicate to him all his familiarity with that trackless desert in which he had lived so long. So they journeyed on, each helping the other. Moses received the earthly assistance, and sought to reward it by sharing the spiritual blessing. W. M. T.

There can be no doubt that eventually Hobab yielded to the solicitations of Moses. The scriptural account leaves very little room to doubt of this. In fact, it is fully proved by Judges 1:16; 4:11, and 1 Sam. 15:6, where the descendants of Hobab, who are called children of the Kenite, the name by which they were distinguished from the rest of the Midianites, are said to have gone up with the Israelites into Canaan, and to have settled among them there, probably without relinquishing their nomadic mode of life. K.—From Judges 1:16 we learn that the sons of Hobab joined themselves to the sons of Judah, and dwelt among them on the southern border of the land. Here is an “undesigned coincidence,” albeit a slight one. Judah led the way on the march from Sinai to Canaan, and Hobab’s duties as guide and scout would bring him more into contact with that tribe than with any other. R. W

All through the subsequent history of Israel we come on the traces of the Kenites, living their free desert life, dwelling in tents, and drinking no wine; one with the people of the Jews, and yet retaining their Arab customs; producing men distinguished in the worst times by their fidelity to God and to the habits of their fathers—as, for instance, Jabez, who was “more honorable than his brethren;” Jonadab, the austere sectary, who rode with Jehu when that vehement prince sought to extirpate every worshipper of Baal throughout the land; and that little band of Rechabites, who, in the final siege of Jerusalem, pitched their t-nts in the streets, and rather than drink wine endured the parching thirsts of famine. Cox.

BOOK OF NUMBERS. PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING SINAI: NUMBERING OF THE FIGHTING MEN; ARRANGEMENT OF THE CAMP AND ORDER OF THE MARCH; NUMBERING OF THE LEVITES, AND ASSIGNMENT OF SERVICE TO THE THREE FAMILIES.