Numbers 4:20

20. They shall not… see… lest they die There is here a very expressive Hebrew word, כבלע , as a gulp, a swallowing. “They shall not see for a single instant the holy things.” Dr. A. Clarke’s reference of this word to the enveloping of the holy things is hardly admissible. The Authorized Version makes the same mistake by rendering it, when they are covered. While we shrink from announcing all the reasons for hanging so many terrors about the abode of Jehovah on the earth, we may say that nothing could more deeply impress upon all the Hebrew people the majesty, power, and holiness of their God in contrast with the divinities of all the surrounding nations. It is in mercy that God withholds from our eager eyes those revelations of his glory which our spiritual stupidity and littleness of faith so often crave. It was after the awful manifestation of Jehovah on the summit of Horeb that the people said to Moses, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak, lest we die.” Exodus 20:19.