Numbers 12:3

12:3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, ¹  more so than any man on the face of the earth.)

Numbers 20:10-13

20:10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the community together in front of the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, ²  must we bring ³  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 ⁴  to show me as holy ⁵  before ⁶  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ⁷ 

20:13 These are the waters of Meribah, because the Israelites contended with the Lord, and his holiness was maintained ⁸  among them.

Psalms 106:32-33

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

and Moses suffered ⁹  because of them,

106:33 for they aroused ¹⁰  his temper, ¹¹ 

and he spoke rashly. ¹² 

Psalms 139:21

139:21 O Lord, do I not hate those who hate you,

and despise those who oppose you? ¹³ 

Mark 3:5

3:5 After looking around ¹⁴  at them in anger, grieved by the hardness of their hearts, ¹⁵  he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ¹⁶ 

Mark 10:14

10:14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me and do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁷ 

[12:3]  ¹ tc The spelling of the word is a Kethib-Qere reading with only a slight difference between the two.

[20:10]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ⁷ 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.

[20:13]  ⁸ tn The form is unusual – it is the Niphal preterite, and not the normal use of the Piel/Pual stem for “sanctify/sanctified.” The basic idea of “he was holy” has to be the main idea, but in this context it refers to the fact that through judging Moses God was making sure people ensured his holiness among them. The word also forms a wordplay on the name Kadesh.

[106:32]  ⁹ tn Heb “there was harm to Moses.”

[106:33]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his spirit.”

[106:33]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text adds “with his lips,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[139:21]  ¹³ tc Heb “who raise themselves up against you.” The form וּבִתְקוֹמְמֶיךָ (uvitqomÿmekha) should be emended to וּבְמִתְקוֹמְמֶיךָ (uvÿmitqomÿmekha), a Hitpolel participle (the prefixed mem [מ] of the participle is accidentally omitted in the MT, though a few medieval Hebrew mss have it).

[3:5]  ¹⁴ tn The aorist participle περιβλεψάμενος (peribleyameno") has been translated as antecedent (prior) to the action of the main verb. It could also be translated as contemporaneous (“Looking around…he said”).

[3:5]  ¹⁵ tn This term is a collective singular in the Greek text.

[3:5]  ¹⁶ sn The passive was restored points to healing by God. Now the question became: Would God exercise his power through Jesus, if what Jesus was doing were wrong? Note also Jesus’ “labor.” He simply spoke and it was so.

[10:14]  ¹⁷ sn The kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Children are a picture of those whose simple trust illustrates what faith is all about. The remark illustrates how everyone is important to God, even those whom others regard as insignificant.