Numbers 27:14

27:14 For ¹  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ²  rebelled against my command ³  to show me as holy ⁴  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Numbers 20:24

20:24 “Aaron will be gathered to his ancestors, ⁵  for he will not enter into the land I have given to the Israelites because both of you ⁶  rebelled against my word ⁷  at the waters of Meribah.

¹ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

² tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

³ tn Heb “mouth.”

⁴ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

⁵ sn This is the standard poetic expression for death. The bones would be buried, often with the bones of relatives in the same tomb, giving rise to the expression.

⁶ tn The verb is in the second person plural form, and so it is Moses and Aaron who rebelled, and so now because of that Aaron first and then Moses would die without going into the land.

⁷ tn Heb “mouth.”