Commentary for Numbers 20:13

המה מי מריבה THESE ARE THE WATERS OF MERIBAH — These are they that were alluded to, though unwittingly, on another occasion: these it was that Pharaoh’s astrologers foresaw, saying that Israel’s deliverer would be punished through water. On that account they decreed (Exodus 1:22) “Every son that is born shall ye cast into the river” (Sanhedrin 101b).

AND HE WAS SANCTIFIED IN THEM — “in that Moses and Aaron died on account of them [i.e., the waters of Meribah]. When the Holy One, blessed be He, executes judgment upon those who are holy [i.e., near] to Him, He becomes revered and sanctified in people’s eyes, as it is said, In them that are nigh unto Me I will be sanctified,¹⁸⁶Leviticus 10:3. and similarly it is stated, Revered is G-d ‘mimikdashecha’ (out of Thy holy places).”¹⁸⁷Psalms 68:36. “Read not mimikdashecha (‘out of Thy holy places’) but mim’kudashecha [‘out of Thy sanctified ones’ — out of those who are holy to His Name, upon whom He executes judgment]” (Rashi, Leviticus 10:3). This is Rashi’s language, and it is also Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra’s interpretation. But it does not appear to me to be correct, for Moses and Aaron had not yet died and it was not commonly known amongst people that they were to die on account of this sin, so that G-d would become revered as a result of it, as happened with Nadab and Abihu,¹⁸⁸Leviticus 10:1-2. and at Perez-uzzah.¹⁸⁹II Samuel 6:8. Besides, Scripture states, These are the waters of Meribah, where the children of Israel strove with the Eternal, and He was sanctified ‘by them,’ meaning to say that He was sanctified by those who did the striving [and not through the punishment of Moses and Aaron, as Rashi and Ibn Ezra said], this being related to the expression ‘In them’ that are nigh unto Me I will be sanctified.¹⁸⁶Leviticus 10:3. And according to their explanation [i.e., that of Rashi and Ibn Ezra], it should have said, [These are the waters of Meribah, where the children of Israel strove with the Eternal] “and He became honored in front of them” [the children of Israel].
The correct interpretation appears to me to be that the incident with the first rock took place in the sight of the elders of Israel¹⁹⁰Exodus 17:6. alone, as it is expressly stated there. But here [in Verse 10] it is said, And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together etc. Therefore Scripture states that these waters of Meribah [Strife] which brought about the Divine decree against Moses and Aaron [that they would not enter the Land], were the same waters of Meribah, where the children of Israel strove with the Eternal and He was sanctified in them in the presence of all of them, similar to that which is written, and I shall gather them out of their enemies’ lands, and will be sanctified in them in the sight of many nations.¹⁹¹Ezekiel 39:27.
Know that at the first [incident with the rock] the people quarrelled with Moses — as it is said, And the people strove with Moses,¹⁹²Exodus 17:2. and so also did Moses say, They are almost ready to stone me¹⁹³Ibid., Verse 4. — and they [also] tried G-d, saying, Is the Eternal among us, or not?¹⁹⁴Ibid., Verse 7. But here they strove with Him Who is on high, but they did riot test Him. Therefore [Scripture] says that these waters of Meribah [Strife] which were the cause of this decree [against Moses and Aaron] are the same waters of Meribah, where the children of Israel strove with the Eternal, and He was sanctified in them in their presence, and they were not the first [waters of the rock in Horeb],¹²⁴Exodus 17:6. where they tried the Eternal, and He was sanctified only in the sight of the elders of Israel.¹⁹⁰Exodus 17:6. And since there were two incidents with a rock, Scripture had to explain for which one [of these two events] these righteous men [Moses and Aaron] were punished.

ויקדש בם, by these very waters G’d did become sanctified later on in the incident which occurred at the river Arnon when He showed these people these unnatural waters as testified to by the Israelites in their song (21,19) ומנחליאל במות that these waters instead of flowing downwards in accordance with the laws of gravity, actually flowed uphill.

המה מי מריבה, they are the waters of strife, etc. Why did the Torah mention "strife" twice in this verse, first מי מריבה, and then אשר רבו בני ישראל? The first word מריבה could easily have been skipped. Furthermore, from the words אשר רבו בני ישראל את השם I gain the impression that the subject in the words are the children of Israel, whereas from the words ויקדש בם it appears that the subject of the verse are Moses and Aaron?

ויקדש בם, G’d’s name had still become sanctified by means of the water which came fort from the rock even though Moses and Aaron had not spoken to the rock.

המה מי מריבה, “they are the waters of strife;” in Parshat Pinchas (Numbers 27,14) we read about מי מריבת קדש “the waters of the strife at Kadesh,” the letter ה in the word מריבה being missing. This is a hint at 5 errors Moses had committed. 1) Instead of assembling עדה a congregation of elders, as G’;d had commanded, he had assembled the whole community, כל הקהל. This resulted in the manifestation of G’d’s glory not taking place as it had on the occasion of the rock near Chorev. On that occasion G’d had promised Moses to be personally manifest (Exodus 17,5-7) The reason why G’d did not manifest Himself this time was that He could not do so in the presence of people who were ritually impure due to seminal discharges by people who had not purified themselves first, As a result of this absence of a manifestation of G’d’s presence Moses and Aaron asked: “do you expect us to produce water from this rock?” 2) He struck the rock. 3) He called the people: “rebellious people.” 4) He struck the rock twice. 5) He asked: ”are we to produce water from this rock?”

המה מי מריבה, “They are the waters of strife, etc.” According to Tanchuma Chukat 11 this is proof that the location Kadesh was instrumental in G’d associating Moses’ punishment with water. We read in Genesis 14,7: “they turned around and came to the well of judgment which is Kadesh.” It was called thus as it had been predestined to serve as a place to sanctify the Lord’s name.

V. 13. בם .ויקדש בם bezieht sich wahrscheinlich auf Mosche und Aharon, die in dem vorigen Verse genannt sind, und ist diese Heiligung in dem zu V. 12 entwickelten Sinne zu verstehen. Mosche und Aharons Tod in der Wüste ist die dauerndste Besiegelung der Göttlichkeit ihrer Sendung und der unverbrüchlichsten Heiligkeit und unnahbaren Unantastbarkeit des durch ihre Vermittlung uns offenbar gewordenen göttlichen Willens für unseren Wandel auf Erden. רוממו ד׳ אלקינו והשתחוו להר קדשו כי קדוש ד׳ אלקינו tönt als mahnender Weltenruf von ihren Gräbern durch alle Zeiten und Räume an alle Geschlechter ihres Volkes. —

ויקדש בם, “He was sanctified through them.” The phenomenon that caused G-d to become sanctified here was the water that came forth from the rock. (Not in accordance with Rashi) As a result, the name of this place henceforth was Kadesh, a sanctified location.

ויקדש בם AND HE WAS SANCTIFIED IN THEM — For Moses and Aaron died on account of them (cf. Targum Jonathan on). When the Holy One, blessed be He, executes judgement upon those who are holy to Him he is revered and sanctified by mankind. Similarly does it state, (Psalms 68:36) “Revered art Thou when Thou showest Thyself אלהים, Judge, in consequence of thy hallowed ones”; and similarly, too, does it state, (Leviticus 10:3) “Through those that draw near unto me shall I be sanctified” (see Rashi on that verse; Zevachim 115b).

ויקדש בם, “He was sanctified through them.” According to Rashi Moses’ and Aaron’s death for their sin was a way of sanctifying G’d’s name as when people observe that G’d applies strict yardsticks of justice even to His chosen people this will make them more G’d-fearing. Concerning the above Nachmanides writes that he does not agree with this explanation seeing that the people had not yet witnessed the death of either Moses or Aaron. Neither had the decree of Moses and Aaron’s impending death been made public at this stage. When they would die eventually, it was not clear what sin had brought about their death. When Uzzah, who had sinfully steadied the Holy Ark, died on the spot, this was a death that induced fear of the Lord as it occurred immediately after the sin. (Compare Samuel II 6,8) The same held true when Nadav and Avihu, the two sons of Aaron who took unauthorized fire in their censers died on the spot. Such deaths contributed to increased fear of the Lord, and the expression ויקדש בם, that G’d’s name became sanctified by their deaths, is appropriate in such instances. [Compare the expression בקרובי אקדש as a similar expression, in Leviticus Ed.] Furthermore, seeing that the Torah wrote explicitly אשר רבו בני ישראל את ה' ויקדש בם, “where the Children of Israel quarreled with Hashem and He was sanctified by them,” we cannot make Moses and Aaron the subjects of this verse. In my opinion, we must understand the verse by comparing it to the first occasion when water from a rock was produced miraculously. On that occasion Moses had assembled only the elders, whereas on this occasion he had assembled all the people. The first time the miracle had been witnessed only by a small group of people, whereas this time the entire nation had witnessed it. It is therefore appropriate for the Torah to refer to these latter waters as the ones through which G’d had become sanctified as all the people had witnessed the miracle and had been impressed by what they had seen. We have a similar verse where G’d is described as having become sanctified as a result of the multitude having witnessed something. (Compare Ezekiel 39,27: וקבצתי אותם מארץ אויביהם ונקדשתי בהם לעיני הגוים, “when I have brought them back from the land of their enemies I will be sanctified in the presence of all the nations.”) You should realize that the confrontation the Torah speaks about began with the people quarreling with Moses, as the Torah wrote: וירב העם עם משה, and as it continues when Moses complained to G’d when he said: ”if they continue in this way they will stone me to death.” (Exodus 17,4) At that time they had sorely tested the patience of G’d when they said: “we want to see if G’d is indeed in our midst or not.” This time around they addressed their complaints also against G’d, but there was no נסיון, testing of G’d’s power or ability involved. This is why this time the waters are only referred to as מי מריבה, waters of strife, whereas the first time the waters were called מי מסה ומריבה, waters where a test of G’d and a quarrel had occurred. On the first occasion G’d had become sanctified only in the presence of the elders, whereas this time He had become sanctified before the eyes of all the people. Seeing that there had been two similar occurrences involving water coming out of a rock, it was necessary for the Torah to tell which of these events caused Moses’ premature death.

ויקדש בם, “He was sanctified through them,” (Moses and Aaron). G’d’s characteristic is to make the punishment fit the crime. Seeing that Moses and Aaron had been the cause that G’d’s name was not sanctified there by them, it had to be sanctified through them. Just as G’d’s name was sanctified through exacting judgment from Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu through killing them, and the Torah describes this as an example of בקרובי אקדש, “I will be sanctified through those who are near Me,” (Leviticus 10,3) so He was sanctified here through the decree not to let Moses and Aaron go unpunished. Seeing the sin began through the Israelites, they were the cause that Moses and Aaron committed an unintentional trespass. Psalms 106,32 makes it plain that G’d was angry at Moses and Aaron on “their account,” i.e. on account of the Israelites. It was they who were the root cause of this tragic episode.
The matter may be understood by means of a parable: There were two women both of whom were sentenced to corporal punishment by their king, one for unchaste behavior, the other for eating unripe figs of the shemittah year (a minor offense). The latter woman asked the King to make public the cause of her punishment so that people should not think that she was guilty of a serious crime such as that of her companion. Similarly, Moses himself asked G’d to make public the sin for which he had been condemned to die outside the Holy Land so that people would not speculate that he was guilty of a far greater sin than he had actually been punished for. Moses’ downfall was the indirect result of G’d’s anger with His people in first withholding water from them. Seeing that the tribe of Levi was not included in the decree issued against the people on account of the spies, Moses too would not have had to die in the desert had it not been for his error at the rock. Numbers 14,29 speaks of כל פקודיכם למספרכם, ”of all of you who were recorded in your various lists from the age of twenty and up, etc.” In other words, only the men of military age who would have had to form part of the invading armies were doomed to die in the desert, not the Levites who 1) were counted from one month and up, 2) would not have served in the army. The Levites had been counted as if they were a separate people.

It appears that our verse wanted to explain why in this instance G'd had been so adamant about the sanctification of His name. The Torah writes המה מי מריבה to tell us that the strife justifies G'd's being adamant. By repeating the words אשר רבו the Torah wished to tell us that in this instance the Israelites were justified to quarrel with G'd (as they were entitled to water). The words ויקדש בם mean that G'd responded by taking action in order that His name should be sanctified amongst them, i.e. through the Israelites. G'd did this by instructing Moses to speak to the rock which the Israelites suggested because if that rock would produce water His name would be greatly enhanced seeing that He had demonstrated complete control even in the desert, and that the desert did not need to be an area spawning nothing but death as the people had thought so far. Now that Moses and Aaron had prevented G'd from demonstrating all this, G'd had become very angry that the opportunity had been missed to sanctify His name. Other sages interpret the words ויקדש בם as a reference to Moses and Aaron. G'd's name was sanctified through the punishment of Moses and Aaron as G'd demonstrated that He does not allow even those closest to Him to ignore His instructions without being punished.

Tief bedeutsam ist aber die Zusammenstellung: Jisraels Söhne hatten mit Gott gehadert — und Mosche und Aharon traf eine Verurteilung. Dieser Gegensatz bekundet eben die קדושת ד׳ in ihrer ganzen Größe (siehe zu V. 12).

Das המה unterscheidet diese מי מריבה des vierzigsten Jahres von denen des ersten (Schmot Kap.17).