And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes.
Leave us not, I pray thee. The earnest importunity of Moses to secure the attendance of this man, when he enjoyed the benefit of the directing cloud, has surprised many. But it should be recollected that the guidence of the cloud, though it showed the general route to be taken through the trackless desert, would not be so special and minute as to point out the places where pasture, shade, and water were to be obtained, and which were often hidden in obscure spots by the shifting sands. Besides, sever detachments were sent off from the main body. The services of Hobab, not as a single Arab, but as a prince of a powerful clan, would have been exceedingly useful; and as a guide they must have been as invaluable as they were urgently required; because the journey within two or three days' distance from Sinai leads so constantly over hills of drift sand, that it is irksome and exceedingly bewildering. 'Among these sandhills,' says Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' vol. 1:,
p. 222), 'it required all Tuweileb's sagacity and experience to keep the proper road; and here apparently Burckhardt's guide ('Travels,' p. 498) missed the way, and kept on further down Wady Murrah.'
Another thing may be mentioned which, as Harmer remarks, 'puts the propriety of this request of Moses out of dispute. The sacred history expressly mentions several journeys undertaken by parties of the Israelites while the main body lay still. In Numbers 13:1-33 we read of a party that was sent out to reconnoitre the land of Canaan; in Numbers 20:1-29, of messengers sent from Kadesh to the king of Edom; in Numbers 31:1-54, of an expedition against the idolatrous Midianites; of some little expeditions in the close of Numbers 32:1-42; and more journeys of the like kind were, without doubt, undertaken, which are not particularly recounted. Now, Moses foreseeing something of this, might well request the company of Hobab, not as a single Arab; but so a prince of their clans, that he might be able to apply to him from time to time for some of his people to be conductors to those whom he might have occasion to send out to different places, while the body or the people and the cloud of the Lord remained stationary, ('Observ.,' vol. 2:, pp. 279-281, Dr. Adam Clarke's edition).