The list of stations in ch. xxxiii. is an important document, which could not have originated in a poetical imagination. This list contains a survey of the whole route of the Israelites, and mentions indi vidual places only in case the Israelites abode there for a considerable period. It is not the production of a diligent compiler, but rather the original work of an author well versed in the circumstances of that period. A later author would certainly have avoided the appearance of some contradictions, such as that in Num. xxxiii. 3o, 31, comp. with Deut. x. 6. This contradiction may best be re moved, by observing that the book of Numbers speaks of the expedition of the Israelites in the second year of their wanderings, and the book of Deuteronomy, of their expedition in the fortieth year. The list of stations contains also important historical notices ; those, for instance, in ch. xxxiii. 4, 9, 14, 38. These notices demonstrate the accu rate historical information of the author.
We still dwell for a moment on the consideration of the great fact, which is the basis of the narrative of the whole book—namely, the sojourn of the Israelites during forty years in the wilderness. The manner in which the narrator states this fact, we have mentioned above. A view so strictly theocra tical, and a description so purely objective, are most befitting the lawgiver himself. Modern criti cism has chiefly taken offence at the statement that Jehovah had announced all this as a punishment to be inflicted upon the people. This, they say, is incomprehensible. However, the fact stands firm, that the Israelites really abode forty years in the wilderness. This fact is proved in the Scriptures by many other testimonies. Hence arises the ques tion, how this protracted abode was occasioned, and what induced Moses to postpone or give up the conquest of Canaan. De Wette says that such re signation, in giving up a plan to which one has devoted the full half of a life, is not human. Gothe asserted, that by such a representation the picture of Moses is entirely disfigured. All this renders the problem of our opponents the more difficult.
De Wette says, Who knows what happened in that long period ?' This question would amount to a confession of our entire ignorance concerning what was most important, and what is the real turning point of the history of Israel, and would make an enormous and most striking gap in universal history. It is incredible that no tradition should have been preserved, in which was told to posterity what was here most important, even if it should only have been in a very disfigured form. It is incredible that what was most important should have been passed by, and that there should have been communicated only what was comparatively insignificant. If this were the case, the traditions of Israel would form a perfectly isolated phenomenon. Thus the history of Israel itself would be something incomprehen sible. Either the history is inconceivable, or the astounding fact is, indeed, a truth. And so it is. The resignation of Moses, and the sojourn of the people in the wilderness, can be explained only by assuming an extraordinary divine intervention. A merely natural interpretation is here completely futile. The problem can only be solved by assum ing that the whole proceeded from the command of God, which is unconditionally obeyed by his servant, and to which even the rebellious people must bow, because they have amply experienced that without God they can do nothing.
For the works relative to Numbers, see the article PENTATEUCIL—H. A. C. H.
NUN (11) ; in Syr. and Arab., a fish), the father of Joshua, who is hence constantly called Joshua ben-Nun, Joshua, the son of Nun.' Nothing is known of the person who bore this name. The Sept. constantly uses the form Nam), which ap pears to have arisen from an error of an earlier copyist (NATH for NATN). From the forms Nai37) and Nadi, found in some MSS., it would seem that later transcribers supposed this Nam) to be the pro nunciation of the Hebrew N'Zl. It is from this error of the Sept. that some of our old versions have Joshua the son of Naue.'—J. K.