Numbers 20:13
This is the Water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Hæc est aqua contradictionis, ubi jurgati sunt filii Israël contra Dominum, et sanctificatus est in eis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τοῦτο ὕδωρ ἀντιλογίας, ὅτι ἐλοιδορήθησαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ἔναντι Κυρίου, καὶ ἡγιάσθη ἐν αὐτοῖς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הֵ֚מָּה מֵ֣י מְרִיבָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר רָב֥וּ בְנֵֽי יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל אֶת יְהוָ֑ה וַיִּקָּדֵ֖שׁ בָּֽם
Haydock's commentary
The water of contradiction or strife. Hebrew Meribah. (Challoner)
Sanctified: he shewed the effects of his power and clemency towards the people, and he treated his ministers with a just severity. The Samaritan copy here inserts what we read in Deuteronomy, only it places the speech of Moses in an historical form. "The Moses said, Lord, &c. (Deuteronomy iii. 24-28.) Moreover, the Lord said to Moses, you shall pass by," &c. (Deuteronomy ii. 4-6.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXLIV
7. But there are some that conspire, that “gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Christ.” They have come together, they have conspired. “Flash forth Thy lightnings, and Thou shalt scatter them.” Abound with Thy miracles, and their conspiracy shall be broken.…“Send forth Thine arrows, and Thou shalt confound them.” Let the unsound be wounded, that, being well wounded, they may be made sound; and let them say, being set now in the Church, in the Body of Christ, let them say with the Church, “I am wounded with Love.” “Send forth Thine Hand from on high.” What afterward? What in the end? How conquereth the Body of Christ? By heavenly aid. “For the Lord Himself shall come with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God shall He descend from heaven,” Himself the Saviour of the body, the Hand of God. What is, “Out of many waters”? From many peoples. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book II
4. I delayed for a little while the production of proofs from the Old Testament, because, wherever the Old Testament is against them they are accustomed to cry out that the Law and the Prophets were until John. But who does not know that under the other dispensation of God all the saints of past times were of equal merit with Christians at the present day? As Abraham in days gone by pleased God in wedlock, so virgins now please him in perpetual virginity. He served the Law and his own times; let us now serve the Gospel and our times,upon whom the ends of the ages have come. David the chosen one, the man after God’s own heart, who had performed all His pleasure, and who in a certain psalm had said, “Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the Lord and shall not slide. …