---
title: "Numbers 20 - Study King James Bible with cokes commentary on the holy bible"
description: "Read Numbers 20 with cokes commentary on the holy bible commentary. 1 Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam die"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/cokes-commentary-on-the-holy-bible/numbers/20"
---

[ Read](/kjv/numbers/20)[ Commentary](/study/numbers/20)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/numbers/20) Audio

 1 Then came the children of Israel, *even* the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.

 2 And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.

 3 And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD!

 4 And why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?

 5 And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto 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.

 6 And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto them.

 7 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

 8 Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.

 9 And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.

 10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?

 11 And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts *also*.

 12 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

 13 This *is* the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the LORD, and he was sanctified in them.*

 14 ¶ And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us:*

 15 How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers:

 16 And when we cried unto the LORD, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we *are* in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border:

 17 Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink *of* the water of the wells: we will go by the king’s *high* way, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders.

 18 And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword.

 19 And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the high way: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only, without *doing* any thing *else*, go through on my feet.

 20 And he said, Thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand.

 21 Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him.

 22 ¶ And the children of Israel, *even* the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor.

 23 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying,

 24 Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah.*

 25 Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor:

 26 And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered *unto his people*, and shall die there.

 27 And Moses did as the LORD commanded: and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

 28 And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount.

 29 And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, *even* all the house of Israel.
 
[Numbers 19](/study/numbers/19) [Numbers 21](/study/numbers/21)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
***[Numbers 20:1](/kjv/numbers/20/1)*****.*****Then came the children of Israel*****—** From Kadesh, where we left the Israelites, ch. Num 13:27 [Numbers 14:25](/kjv/numbers/14/25). They continued to wander in the desarts of Arabia thirty-seven years, and found there seventeen different encampments, ch. 33: After which, all that generation of murmurers being dead, Moses, always guided by the miraculous cloud, was ordered to return into the desart of *Sin,*upon the confines of Idumea. 

***In the first month*****—** That is to say, in the first month of the fortieth year after their departure from Egypt; which happening in the year of the world 2513, this, consequently, was the first month of the year 2552; see Bedford's Scripture Chronology, book 4: chap. 5. It may seem strange, perhaps, that Moses should pass in silence the transactions of these thirty and seven years which the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, and give us only the first and last years of their peregrinations: but M. le Clerc well remarks, that there is nothing strange in this, since Moses writes not so much in quality of an historian as of a legislator, whose purpose it was to deliver down to posterity all those laws which he received from God; and that system of laws being completed in the first two years after the Exodus, and no new law being delivered during the subsequent years, it did not fall in with his design to insert the history of those years in the Pentateuch. It appears, however, that during the long sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness, they preserved, with an almost inconceivable obstinacy, their unhappy propensity to the idolatry of Egypt: not content, however, with the idols of Egypt, they borrowed those of the new people with whom they had any conversation. Moloch, Chiun, Remphan, and other such-like Divinities, of whom we know little more than the names, partook of their homage with the true and eternal God. 

***In Kadesh*****—** Not in Kadesh Barnea, the fifteenth station or encampment of the Israelites, upon the confines of the southern part of Canaan; but in another Kadesh, which was upon the confines of Idumea, and not far from the Red-sea. 

***And Miriam died there*****—** Four months before her brother Aaron, ch. Num 33:38 and eleven before Moses. She was the eldest of three, and was near a hundred and thirty years old, as may be collected from Exo 4:7 where it appears, that she was not a child when Moses was born. Eusebius tells us, that in his time the tomb of Miriam was found at Kadesh, at a little distance from Petra, the capital of Arabia Petraea. Several of the ancients believed that she died a virgin; and that she was the legislatrix and governess of the Israelitish women, as Moses was the legislator of the men.

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