Commentary: On Numbers

These two passages from the Hebrew commentary of Joseph Bekhor Shor on the book of Numbers illustrate recurring themes in his scriptural exegesis. In the first, on Numbers 12:7–8, Joseph criticizes Christians who, he states, render the Torah into “riddles and metaphors” and ignore the commandments spelled out in that text. (Joseph does not mention Christians explicitly but assumes that his reader understands what he means.) This leads him to criticize Karaites or other Jews who read the commandments as symbolic and deny that they require placing mezuzas on doorposts or wearing tefillin (phylacteries). In his comment on Numbers 20:8, Joseph asserts that the story found in this chapter is the same event recounted in Exodus 17. Rather than allowing that similar events took place twice, like some commentators, Joseph maintains that, for whatever reasons, sometimes the Torah offers different details of the same event in different passages.