Richard Challoner

This fourth Book of Moses is called NUMBERS, because it begins with the numbering of the people. The Hebrews, from its first words, call it VAIEDABBER. It contains the transactions of the Israelites from the second month of the second year after their going out of Egypt, until the beginning of the eleventh month of the fortieth year; that is, a history almost of thirty-nine years.

Shall confess: This confession and satisfaction, ordained in the Old Law, was a figure of the sacrament of penance.

The spirit of jealousy: This ordinance was designed to clear the innocent, and to prevent jealous husbands from doing mischief to their wives: as likewise to give all a horror of adultery, by punishing it in so remarkable a manner.

Let them be sprinkled with the water of purification: This was the holy water mixed with the ashes of the red cow, Num. 19., appointed for purifying all that were unclean. It was a figure of the blood of Christ, applied to our souls by his holy sacraments.

Make the phase: That is, keep the paschal solemnity, and eat the paschal lamb.

Behold some who were unclean by occasion of the soul of a man: That is, by having touched or come near a dead body, out of which the soul was departed.

The burning: Hebrew, Taberah.

A mixt multitude: These were people that came with them out of Egypt, who were not of the race of Israel; who, by their murmuring, drew also the children of Israel to murmur: this should teach us the danger of associating ourselves with the children of Egypt, that is, with the lovers and admirers of this wicked world.

Bdellium: Bdellium, according to Pliny, 1. 21, c. 9. was of the colour of a man's nail, white and bright.

Seventy men: This was the first institution of the council or senate, called the Sanhedrin, consisting of seventy or seventy-two senators or counsellors.

The graves of lust: Or, the sepulchres of concupiscence: so called from their irregular desire of flesh. In Hebrew, Kibroth. Hattaavah.

Ethiopian: Sephora the wife of Moses was of Madian, which bordered upon the land of Chus or Ethiopia: where note, that the Ethiopia here spoken of is not that of Africa but that of Arabia.

Exceeding meek: Moses being the meekest of men, would not contend for himself; therefore, God inspired him to write here his own defence: and the Holy Spirit, whose dictate he wrote, obliged him to declare the truth, though it was so much to his own praise.

Spoke ill: These men, who by their misrepresentations of the land of promise, discouraged the Israelites from attempting the conquest of it, were a figure of worldlings, who, by decrying or misrepresenting true devotion, discourage Christians from seeking in earnest and acquiring so great a good, and thereby securing to themselves a happy eternity.

Clear: i. e., who deserves punishment.

Shall bear your fornication: That is, shall bear the punishment of your disloyalty to God, which in the scripture language is here called a fornication, in a spiritual sense.

Fringes: The Pharisees enlarged these fringes through hypocrisy, Matt. 23. 5, to appear more zealous than other men for the law of God.

Rose up: The crime of these men, which was punished in so remarkable a manner, was that of schism, and of rebellion against the authority established by God in the church; and their pretending to the priesthood without being lawfully called and sent: the same is the case of all modern sectaries.

Very angry: This anger was a zeal against sin; and an indignation at the affront offered to God; like that which the same holy prophet conceived upon the sight of the golden calf, Ex. 32. 19.

The rod of Aaron for the house of Levi, was budded: This rod of Aaron which thus miraculously brought forth fruit, was a figure of the blessed Virgin conceiving and bringing forth her Son without any prejudice to her virginity.