Deuteronomy 1:37

1:37 As for me, the Lord was also angry with me on your account. He said, “You also will not be able to go there.

Deuteronomy 31:2

31:2 He said to them, “Today I am a hundred and twenty years old. I am no longer able to get about, ¹  and the Lord has said to me, ‘You will not cross the Jordan.’

Deuteronomy 32:51-52

32:51 for both of you ²  rebelled against me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the desert of Zin when you did not show me proper respect ³  among the Israelites. 32:52 You will see the land before you, but you will not enter the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”

Deuteronomy 34:4

34:4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ⁴  I have let you see it, ⁵  but you will not cross over there.”

Numbers 20:7-12

20:7 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 20:8 “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak ⁶  to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth ⁷  its water, and you will bring water out of the rock for them, and so you will give the community and their beasts water to drink.”

20:9 So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, just as he commanded him. 20:10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the community together in front of the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, ⁸  must we bring ⁹  water out of this rock for you?” 20:11 Then Moses raised his hand, and struck the rock twice with his staff. And water came out abundantly. So the community drank, and their beasts drank too.

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ¹⁰  to show me as holy ¹¹  before ¹²  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ¹³ 

Numbers 27:12-14

Leadership Change

27:12 ¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range, ¹⁵  and see ¹⁶  the land I have given ¹⁷  to the Israelites. 27:13 When you have seen it, you will be gathered ¹⁸  to your ancestors, ¹⁹  as Aaron your brother was gathered to his ancestors. ²⁰  27:14 For ²¹  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ²²  rebelled against my command ²³  to show me as holy ²⁴  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Psalms 106:32-33

106:32 They made him angry by the waters of Meribah,

and Moses suffered ²⁵  because of them,

106:33 for they aroused ²⁶  his temper, ²⁷ 

and he spoke rashly. ²⁸ 

Isaiah 53:5-6

53:5 He was wounded because of ²⁹  our rebellious deeds,

crushed because of our sins;

he endured punishment that made us well; ³⁰ 

because of his wounds we have been healed. ³¹ 

53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;

each of us had strayed off on his own path,

but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. ³² 

Matthew 26:39

26:39 Going a little farther, he threw himself down with his face to the ground and prayed, ³³  “My Father, if possible, ³⁴  let this cup ³⁵  pass from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

[31:2]  ¹ tn Or “am no longer able to lead you” (NIV, NLT); Heb “am no longer able to go out and come in.”

[32:51]  ² tn The use of the plural (“you”) in the Hebrew text suggests that Moses and Aaron are both in view here, since both had rebelled at some time or other, if not at Meribah Kadesh then elsewhere (cf. Num 20:24; 27:14).

[32:51]  ³ tn Heb “did not esteem me holy.” Cf. NIV “did not uphold my holiness”; NLT “failed to demonstrate my holiness.”

[34:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[34:4]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “with your eyes,” but this is redundant in English and is left untranslated.

[20:8]  ⁶ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, following the two imperatives in the verse. Here is the focus of the instruction for Moses.

[20:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “give.” The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, as are the next two in the verse. These are not now equal to the imperatives, but imperfects, showing the results of speaking to the rock: “speak…and it will…and so you will….”

[20:10]  ⁸ tn The word is הַמֹּרִים (hammorim, “the rebels”), but here as a vocative: “you rebels.” It was a harsh address, although well-earned.

[20:10]  ⁹ tn The word order and the emphasis of the tense are important to this passage. The word order is “from this rock must we bring out to you water?” The emphasis is clearly on “from this rock!” The verb is the imperfect tense; it has one of the modal nuances here, probably obligatory – “must we do this?”

[20:12]  ¹⁰ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ¹¹ 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.

[20:12]  ¹² tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ¹³ tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.

[27:12]  ¹⁴ sn See further J. Lindblom, “Lot Casting in the Old Testament,” VT 12 (1962): 164-78; E. Lipinski, “Urim and Thummim,” VT 20 (1970): 495-96; and S. E. Loewenstamm, “The Death of Moses,” Tarbiz 27 (1957/58): 142-57.

[27:12]  ¹⁵ tc The Greek version adds “which is Mount Nebo.” This is a typical scribal change to harmonize two passages.

[27:12]  ¹⁶ tn The imperative could be subordinated to the first to provide a purpose clause, although a second instruction fits well enough.

[27:12]  ¹⁷ tn This perfect tense would best be classified as a perfect of resolve: “which I have decided to give.” God had not yet given the land to them, but it was certain he would.

[27:13]  ¹⁸ tn The first verb is a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive, and the second verb is also. In such parallel clauses, the first may be subordinated, here as a temporal clause.

[27:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “people.”

[27:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “was gathered.” The phrase “to his ancestors” is elided in the Hebrew text, but is an implied repetition from the beginning of the verse, and has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[27:14]  ²¹ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

[27:14]  ²² tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

[27:14]  ²³ tn Heb “mouth.”

[27:14]  ²⁴ 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.

[106:32]  ²⁵ tn Heb “there was harm to Moses.”

[106:33]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew text vocalizes the form as הִמְרוּ (himru), a Hiphil from מָרָה (marah, “to behave rebelliously”), but the verb fits better with the object (“his spirit”) if it is revocalized as הֵמֵרוּ (hemeru), a Hiphil from מָרַר (marar, “to be bitter”). The Israelites “embittered” Moses’ “spirit” in the sense that they aroused his temper with their complaints.

[106:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “his spirit.”

[106:33]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew text adds “with his lips,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[53:5]  ²⁹ tn The preposition מִן (min) has a causal sense (translated “because of”) here and in the following clause.

[53:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the punishment of our peace [was] on him.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is here a genitive of result, i.e., “punishment that resulted in our peace.”

[53:5]  ³¹ sn Continuing to utilize the imagery of physical illness, the group acknowledges that the servant’s willingness to carry their illnesses (v. 4) resulted in their being healed. Healing is a metaphor for forgiveness here.

[53:6]  ³² tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.

[26:39]  ³³ tn Grk “ground, praying and saying.” Here the participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[26:39]  ³⁴ tn Grk “if it is possible.”

[26:39]  ³⁵ sn This cup alludes to the wrath of God that Jesus would experience (in the form of suffering and death) for us. See Ps 11:6; 75:8-9; Isa 51:17, 19, 22 for this figure.