Essentially a travelogue, Numbers Chapter 33 lists the pit stops along the desert ways. Abravanel probes: Why is it
necessary here to delineate the places where the Hebrews had frequented for the past forty years?
Hadn’t the stops been identified “in real time” as the Jews arrived there? What is gained, he continues,
by grouping all the destinations into a single chapter? Finally, Abravanel wonders whose idea it was to
compose this travelogue – Moses’ or the Creator’s?

“These are the sojourns of the hosts of the Children of Israel who came
out of the land of Egypt by Moses and Aaron.”

Here is the simple reading that address and answer the questions. “These are the sojourns of the hosts
of the Children of Israel who came out of the land of Egypt…” Hosts or myriads of Hebrew soldiers left
Egypt. Moses and Aaron led them. As for the impetus to chronicle the people’s comings and goings, that
was the Creator’s idea, as the next verse makes explicit: “And Moses wrote their goings forth, stage by
stage, by the commandment of God. And these are their stages at their goings forth.” Clearly, it was His
word and His express command. God directed His servant to do so, for He saw great value and benefit in
recording the Hebrew’s desert travelogue. Abravanel provides four takeaways. For brevity, we
summarize the first two.

First, our Torah portion memorializes the magnitude of God’s benevolence shown to the Jews.
This despite His decree that they would wander and wander and wander wasteland roads
without respite. All tallied, forty years witnessed their having encamped in only forty-two
locations, as classic commentators have written. “And you shall dwell in Kadesh many days, like
the days you dwell there.” According to an early historical work, they clocked nineteen years in
that one destination. In fact, the inordinate amount of time they spent in Kadesh pretty much
matches up with the remainder of all of the other stops put together.

Second, readers should not walk away with the wrong impression. To state the obvious, there
are deserts and there are deserts. The one where the Hebrews walked was not the milder sort
that skirt or border civilization. That is, Abravanel teaches, they were not the arid climes
popular with Kedar Arabs, who dwell in them. This clan plants and harvests their deserts. Trees,
grazing pastures, and water wells soften their nomadic existence, making it bearable.

A study in contrast, the Jew’s sojourns featured none of that. Vast, Sinai’s deserts offered heaps
of treachery. Poisonous vipers, scorpions, and an oppressively parching sun called it home. “It is
not a place for sowing seeds or fig trees,” the Torah writes elsewhere in Numbers. As for
water—nada.

So fundamental is this knowledge for posterity, the Torah insists on listing each and every name
place. No Bible student can deny the tribulations that were the Hebrews’ lot. A veritable
pit—for forty years the people had plodded along.

In sum, Abravanel clarifies that it was the Maker’s initiative to succinctly record the nation’s
wasteland itinerary. He saw value the desert travelogue, in several distinct ways, as alluded to
here.