Numbers 11:20

11:20 but a whole month, ¹  until it comes out your nostrils and makes you sick, ²  because you have despised ³  the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why ⁴  did we ever come out of Egypt?”’”

Numbers 20:12

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ⁵  to show me as holy ⁶  before ⁷  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ⁸ 

[11:20]  ¹ tn Heb “a month of days.” So also in v. 21.

[11:20]  ² tn The expression לְזָרָה (lÿzarah) has been translated “ill” or “loathsome.” It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The Greek text interprets it as “sickness.” It could be nausea or vomiting (so G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 112) from overeating.

[11:20]  ³ sn The explanation is the interpretation of their behavior – it is in reality what they have done, even though they would not say they despised the Lord. They had complained and shown a lack of faith and a contempt for the program, which was in essence despising the Lord.

[11:20]  ⁴ tn The use of the demonstrative pronoun here (“why is this we went out …”) is enclitic, providing emphasis to the sentence: “Why in the world did we ever leave Egypt?”

[20:12]  ⁵ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ⁸ 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.