Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Silver Trumpets, and the Setting Out
Numbers 10:1-36
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
Two trumpets summon and dismiss a nation, and the journey begins with Moses asking a Midianite to come and be their eyes.
Two silver trumpets run the camp. One blast summons the leaders, two summon the assembly, and a different signal — an alarm — starts the march Numbers 10:3–6.
The same instrument does two other things. In war, you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets. Then you will be remembered before Yahweh your God Numbers 10:9. And in the day of your gladness, and in your set feasts, they are blown over the offerings Numbers 10:10.
The sound that calls a nation to move, the sound it makes when it is frightened, and the sound it makes when it is glad are all made on the same two horns. And in each case the stated effect is that God remembers.
Then the camp leaves Sinai Numbers 10:11, after eleven months in one place, and the order of march is exactly the order of the camp.
What happens next is a small scene that is easy to pass and is one of the most human in the book.
Moses asks his Midianite relative to come along: come with us, and we will treat you well Numbers 10:29. The man declines — I will not go; but I will depart to my own land Numbers 10:30.
And Moses asks again, and the reason he gives is startling. Don't leave us, please; because you know how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes Numbers 10:31.
They have a pillar of cloud. They have just been told, at length, that it decides when they move and where they stop Numbers 9:17–23. And Moses wants a desert guide, because a man who knows the country is useful and the cloud does not make him unnecessary.
Nothing in the text treats that as a failure of faith. The offer is repeated with a promise attached — whatever good Yahweh does to us, we will do the same to you Numbers 10:32 — and the book does not record whether he came.
The chapter ends with the two sentences Moses said whenever the ark moved and stopped. Rise up, Yahweh, and let your enemies be scattered! And: return, Yahweh, to the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel Numbers 10:35–36.
A departure prayer and an arrival prayer, said over a box, every time a nation of that size picked up and put down.
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