And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days,.... According both to Josephus n and the Samaritan Chronicle o, they cried and wept in a very vehement manner, when he signified to them his approaching death, and took his leave of them; and when he was dead they mourned for him, in a public manner, the space of time here mentioned, the time of mourning for his brother Aaron, Numbers 20:29;
so the days of weeping [and] mourning for Moses were ended; on the eighth of Nisan or March, as says the Targum of Jonathan, and on the "ninth" they prepared their vessels and their cattle for a march, and on the tenth passed over Jordan, and on the "sixteenth" the manna ceased, according to the said paraphrase.
n Ut supra. (De Bello Jud. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 49.) o Apud Hottinger, p. 456.