🔢WEB · Numbers 20:7
What does Numbers 20:7 mean?
"Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,"
— Numbers 20:7 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Why have you brought Yahweh’s assembly into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals?
Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.”
Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. Yahweh’s glory appeared to them.
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
“Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it pour out its water. You shall bring water to them out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink.”
Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, as he commanded him.
Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you?”
Explanation
Numbers 20:7 reads simply, "Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying," which in itself is a brief transitional statement rather than a stand-alone teaching. It functions as an introduction, signaling that God is about to give Moses specific instructions. This kind of phrase appears repeatedly throughout the book of Numbers (and the Pentateuch generally) as a literary marker that shifts the narrative from the people's circumstances to direct divine communication.
The book of Numbers was written by Moses (according to Jewish and Christian tradition) and records Israel's forty years of wilderness wandering between Sinai and the plains of Moab. This particular verse sits at the opening of a well-known and sobering episode: the Israelites, camped at Kadesh, are complaining bitter
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