Numbers 20:8 - Exposition

Take the rod. The ῥάβδος , or staff of office, with which Moses and Aaron had worked wonders before Pharaoh ( Exodus 7:9 sq. ), and with which Moses had smitten the rock in Rephidim ( Exodus 17:6 ). This rod had not been mentioned, nor perhaps used, since then; but we might certainly have supposed that the instrument of so many miracles would be reverently laid up in the tabernacle "before the Lord," and, this we find from the next verse to have been the case. Gather thou the assembly together, i.e; by their representatives. Speak ye unto the rock before their eyes. The word used for the rock in this narrative is הַסֶּלַע instead of הַחּוּר , as in Exodus 17:1-16 . It does not seem that any certain distinction of meaning can be drawn between the words, which are obviously interchanged in 6:20 , 6:21 , and are both translated πέτρα by the Septuagint; but the careful use of different terms in the two narratives serves to distinguish them, just as the use of κοφίνους and σπυρίδας by St. Mark helps to distinguish the two miracles of feeding the multitude.