Context No. 2477 of 4322 · Numbers

Numbers 33:33-48: in context

33They traveled from Hor Haggidgad, and encamped in Jotbathah. 34They traveled from Jotbathah, and encamped in Abronah. 35They traveled from Abronah, and encamped in Ezion Geber. 36They traveled from Ezion Geber, and encamped at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. 37They traveled from Kadesh, and encamped in Mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom. 38Aaron the priest went up into Mount Hor at the commandment of the LORD and died there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fifth month, on the first day of the month. 39Aaron was one hundred twenty-three years old when he died in Mount Hor. 40The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the South in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the children of Israel. 41They traveled from Mount Hor, and encamped in Zalmonah. 42They traveled from Zalmonah, and encamped in Punon. 43They traveled from Punon, and encamped in Oboth. 44They traveled from Oboth, and encamped in Iye Abarim, in the border of Moab. 45They traveled from Iyim, and encamped in Dibon Gad. 46They traveled from Dibon Gad, and encamped in Almon Diblathaim. 47They traveled from Almon Diblathaim, and encamped in the mountains of Abarim, before Nebo. 48They traveled from the mountains of Abarim, and encamped in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

This chapter is a travel log: they journeyed from here and camped there, from there and camped at the next place, stage after stage of Israel's forty years in the wilderness. Names most of us cannot place, Jotbathah, Abronah, Punon, Oboth, each one a stop remembered. Tucked into the list is a death: at Mount Hor, Aaron the priest went up at the LORD's command and died, aged one hundred twenty-three.

It would be easy to skim, but the itinerary is a kind of remembering. God kept a record of every stage, the ordinary camps and the hard ones, including the mountain where a brother and high priest was buried. The journey was not a blur to him; it was a named path he led them through, one leg at a time. There is comfort in that. My own pilgrimage, the tedious stretches and the places of loss, is not lost on God. He knows the route by heart, every campsite, and he was leading at each one, even the stops I would rather forget.

Can I look back and name the stages God has led me through, the tedious and the painful alike, and see that he was leading at each one?

Sources

Numbers 33:38: Aaron the priest went up into Mount Hor at the commandment of the LORD and died there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel had come out of Egypt.
Numbers 33:37: They traveled from Kadesh, and encamped in Mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom.
Deuteronomy 8:2: You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness.