Numbers 12:16

16 Only then did the people march from Hazeroth and set up camp in the Wilderness of Paran.

Numbers 12:16 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 12:16

And afterwards the people removed from Hazeroth
After seven days, where they had been so long at least; the cloud being returned to the tabernacle, and having been taken up, which was the signal for motion, the camps of Israel, in their order, removed and marched forward:

and pitched in the wilderness of Paran;
at a place in it called Rithmah, ( Numbers 33:18 ) ; which, according to Bunting F13, was eight miles from Hazeroth, near to which was another place called Kadesh, or else this was another name of Rithmah, see ( Numbers 13:3 Numbers 13:26 ) ; and now the Israelites were very near the land of promise, and from hence they sent spies to make their observations on it, and bring a report of it; and had it not been for their ill conduct in that affair, in all probability would have been quickly in it, but on that account were kept out thirty eight years longer: it was on the twenty eighth or twenty ninth of the month Sivan the Israelites came to this place, according to the Jewish writers F14, which month answers part of our May and part of June.


FOOTNOTES:

F13 Travels p. 82.
F14 Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 24. & Meyer. Annotat. in ib. p. 338.

Numbers 12:16 In-Context

14 God answered Moses, "If her father had spat in her face, wouldn't she be ostracized for seven days? Quarantine her outside the camp for seven days. Then she can be readmitted to the camp."
15 So Miriam was in quarantine outside the camp for seven days. The people didn't march on until she was readmitted.
16 Only then did the people march from Hazeroth and set up camp in the Wilderness of Paran.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.