Numberi 22:3

3 Zo vreesde Moab zeer voor het aangezicht dezes volks, want het was veel; en Moab was beangstigd voor het aangezicht van de kinderen Israels.

Numberi 22:3 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 22:3

And Moab was sore afraid of the people
Lest they should enter into their country and do to them as they had done to Sihon and Og, and their countries; on this account the king of Moab, his nobles, and the people of the land, were in an exceeding great panic, which was a fulfilling of the prophecy of Moses in ( Exodus 15:15 ) :

because they were many
the number of them taken a little after in this place, where they now were, in the plains of Moab, even after 24,000 had died of the plague, was 601,730, ( Numbers 25:9 ) ( 26:51 ) :

and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel;
though they had no reason for it, had they considered their relation to them, being the descendants of Abraham, the uncle of Lot, whose posterity they were; and that the Israelites had done them service in delivering them from such bad neighbours, who had taken much of their country from them, and were doubtless making continual encroachments on them; and especially had they known the orders the Israelites had from the Lord not to distress them, nor contend with them in battle, ( Deuteronomy 2:9 ) , but this they were ignorant of, and being of a different religion from the Israelites, had them in abhorrence, or loathed them, as the word signifies; though the meaning rather seems to be, that they had a nausea, a loathing in their stomachs, and could not eat their food, because of the dread of the Israelites that was upon them; or they were weary of their lives, as Jarchi interprets it, and as the word is used, ( Genesis 27:46 ) .

Numberi 22:3 In-Context

1 Daarna reisden de kinderen van Israel, en legerden zich in de vlakken velden van Moab, aan deze zijde van de Jordaan van Jericho.

2 Toen Balak, de zoon van Zippor, zag al wat Israel aan de Amorieten gedaan had;

3 Zo vreesde Moab zeer voor het aangezicht dezes volks, want het was veel; en Moab was beangstigd voor het aangezicht van de kinderen Israels.

4 Derhalve zeide Moab tot de oudsten der Midianieten: Nu zal deze gemeente oplikken al wat rondom ons is, gelijk de os de groente des velds oplikt. Te dier tijd nu was Balak, de zoon van Zippor, koning der Moabieten.

5 Die zond boden aan Bileam, den zoon van Beor, te Pethor, hetwelk aan de rivier is, in het land der kinderen zijns volks, om hem te roepen, zeggende: Zie, er is een volk uit Egypte getogen; zie, het heeft het gezicht des lands bedekt, en het blijft liggen recht tegenover mij.