And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee.
When the ark set forward, that Moses said. Moses, as the organ of the people, uttered an appropriate prayer both at the commencement and the end of each journey. Thus, all the journeys were sanctified by devotion; but it is in a poetical form, and was probably the initial words of a hymn or sacred song chorussed by the people on these occasions. It was imitated by David. Psalms 68:1. Modern criticism asserts that the psalm was the original whence the words in this passage of Numbers was borrowed, 'Lord' being changed into 'God' (Ewald, also Hupfeld, quoted by Arnold, 'English Biblical Criticism and the Pentateuch,' p. 53). But for this assertion there is no reason, except what arises from the theory of the late composition of the Pentateuch.