Bilangan 20:8

20:8 “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak ¹  to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth ²  its water, and you will bring water out of the rock for them, and so you will give the community and their beasts water to drink.”

Bilangan 27:14

27:14 For ³  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ⁴  rebelled against my command ⁵  to show me as holy ⁶  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

[20:8]  ¹ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, following the two imperatives in the verse. Here is the focus of the instruction for Moses.

[20:8]  ² tn Heb “give.” The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, as are the next two in the verse. These are not now equal to the imperatives, but imperfects, showing the results of speaking to the rock: “speak…and it will…and so you will….”

[27:14]  ³ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

[27:14]  ⁴ tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

[27:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “mouth.”

[27:14]  ⁶ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.