Numbers 20:1

ARRIVAL AT KADESH, Numbers 20:1.

1. The whole congregation This form of expression strongly confirms the suggestion of a wide dispersion of Israel during the years of Jehovah’s displeasure. But now, when his judicial sentence is about to expire, there is a grand rally of all the wanderers unto Kadesh, the point from which they diverged.

Desert of Zin This is the Arabah, or valley along the western side of Mount Seir. See Numbers 13:21, note. It must be distinguished from the Wilderness of Sin, on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, northwest of Mount Sinai. Exodus 16:1, note. Palmer advances the theory that Zin is the “south-east corner of the Desert et Tih, between Akabah and the head of Wady Garaiyeh.”

First month The subsequent account proves that this is the first month of the fortieth year of the Exode. See Introduction, (4.) Kadesh is by some regarded as a district on the south of Canaan, and extending eastward into the Arabah, or Wilderness of Zin. Various points in this district have been selected by travellers as the site of the camp as, Petra, by Stanley; Ain-el-Weibeh, by Robinson; and Ain Gadis, by Rowlands and Williams, about fifty miles west-northwest of Mount Horeb, according to Palmer’s map. See Genesis 14:7, note. Miriam is probably the sister of Moses who watched the ark in the flags of the Nile. Exodus 2:4. She never lost the influence of seniority. In Micah 6:4, she is enrolled as one of the three deliverers. She was the first of the family who exhibited prophetic gifts. Exodus 15:20. She was unenviably conspicuous in the opposition to Moses (Numbers 12:1) when the ambitious prophetess was smitten with leprosy, and restored at the entreaty of her sorrowful brothers. This was the last public event in her life. According to Josephus she was the wife of Hur and grandmother of Bezaleel the architect. She must have been about one hundred and thirty years old. In the Koran she is confounded with the Virgin Mary.