41 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Numbers 21 This chapter gives an account of the defeat of King Arad, the Canaanite, Numbers 21:1 of the murmurings of the children of Israel, because of difficulties in travelling round, the land of Edom, for which they were punished with fiery serpents, Numbers 21:4 and how that upon their repentance a brazen serpent was ordered...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And [when] King Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south,.... Arad seems rather to be the name of a place, city, or country, of which the Canaanite was king, than the name of a man, since we read of the king of Arad, Joshua 12:14 see also Jude 1:16 and so the Targums of Onkelos and Jerusalem here render it, the king of Arad; and the Targum of...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
The armies of Israel now begin to emerge out of the wilderness, and to come into a land inhabited, to enter upon action, and take possession of the frontiers of the land of promise. A glorious campaign this chapter gives us the history of, especially in the latter part of it. Here is, I. The defeat of Arad the Canaanite, ver. 1-3. II. The...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners. And Israel vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. And the LORD hearkened to...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord,.... The Israelites made supplication to the Lord for help against their enemies, and that he would give them victory over them, and made promises to him: and said, if thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand; certainly and entirely deliver them, so as that a complete victory shall be obtained over...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel,.... In their prayers and vows; with acceptance heard, and answered them according to their wish: and delivered up the Canaanites: into their hands, gave them victory over them: and they utterly destroyed them and their cities; that is, "anathematized" them, and devoted them to destruction; for as yet...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they journeyed from Mount Hor,.... After the battle with the king of Arad, and the defeat of him: by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom; which lay by it, and from whence it had the name of the Red sea, Edom signifying red; and by the way of that the Israelites must needs go, to go round that country: and the soul of the people...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the people spake against God,.... Who went before them in the pillar of cloud and fire, for leading them in such a way; that is, against Christ, as the apostle has taught us to interpret it, 1 Corinthians 10:9, and is no inconsiderable proof of the deity of Christ; and so the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it, "and the people thought in their...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. One gets tired, in reading of the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness, of this parrot cry, “Wherefore have ye brought us up out of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people,.... Of which there were great numbers in the deserts of Arabia, and about the Red sea; but hitherto the Israelites were protected from them by the cloud about them, but sinning, the Lord suffered them to come among them, to punish them; these are called fiery, either from their colour, for in...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. Like a true mediator, he was...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, we have sinned,.... Being bitten with serpents, and some having died, the rest were frightened, and came and made an humble acknowledgment of their sins to Moses: for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; murmuring at their being brought out of Egypt, and because they had no better...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord said unto Moses,.... Out of the cloud; or, it may be, Moses went into the sanctuary, and there prayed, and the Lord answered him from between the cherubim: make them a fiery serpent; not a real one, but the likeness of one, one that should very much resemble the fiery serpents Israel had been bitten with: and set it upon a pole; a...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. This...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses made a serpent of brass,.... Which was the most proper metal to make it of, that it might resemble the fiery serpents, whether of a golden or scarlet colour: and Diodorus Siculus (d) speaks of some of the colour of brass, whose bite was immediately followed with death, and by which, if anyone was struck, he was seized with terrible...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the children of Israel set forward,.... From Zalmonah, and came to Punon, which, according to the above writer, was twenty miles from it; though here indeed, some think, the brazen serpent was set up, here being, as before observed, brass mines to furnish with that metal: and pitched in Oboth; which was twenty four miles from Punon, as says...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they journeyed from Oboth,.... How long they stayed there is not certain: and pitched at Ijeabarim; which, according to Bunting (k), was sixteen miles from Oboth; Jarchi says it was the way that passengers pass by Mount Nebo to the land of Canaan, and which divides between the land of Moab and the land of the Amorites: in the wilderness which...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
From thence they removed, and pitched in the valley of Zered. Or the brook Zered, as in Deuteronomy 13:14 that is near it: this seems to be the same station with Dibongad, Numbers 33:45, and which, according to the above writer, was sixteen miles from Ijeabarim.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
From thence they removed, and pitched on the other side of Arnon,.... A river on the borders of Moab: which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites; according to Jarchi, they went round the land of Moab, all to the south and east, and came not into the border of Moab, as Jephthah said, Judges 11:18 but before they came...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord,.... A history of wars in former times, which the Lord had suffered to be in the world; and which, as Aben Ezra thinks, reached from the times of Abraham and so might begin with the battle of the kings in his time, and take in others in later times, and particularly those of Sihon, king of...