Bilangan 20:8
Konteks20:8 “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak 1 to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth 2 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.”
Bilangan 20:12
Konteks20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough 3 to show me as holy 4 before 5 the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” 6
[20:8] 1 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] 2 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….”
[20:12] 3 tn Or “to sanctify me.”
[20:12] sn The verb is the main word for “believe, trust.” It is the verb that describes the faith in the Word of the
[20:12] 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.
[20:12] 5 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
[20:12] 6 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.