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Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of Moses’ father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, “We are setting out for the place of which the LORD said: ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the LORD has promised good things to Israel.”
Numbers 10:29 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are journeying to the place of which Yahweh said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well; for Yahweh has spoken good concerning Israel.”
  • KJV And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses’ father in law, We are journeying unto the place of which the LORD said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for the LORD hath spoken good concerning Israel.
  • NKJV Now Moses said to Hobab the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well; for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.”
  • NASB Then Moses said to Hobab the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out to the place of which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will do you good, for the Lord has promised good concerning Israel.”
  • NLT One day Moses said to his brother-in-law, Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, “We are on our way to the place the Lord promised us, for he said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised wonderful blessings for Israel!”

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

Moses invites Hobab, his Midianite relative, to journey with Israel and share in God's promised good. He extends covenant blessing to an outsider.

Overview

Moses urges his kinsman Hobab to come along, confident that God has spoken good concerning Israel. The invitation to share in God's promised blessing reflects God's wider purpose to draw outsiders into His people, anticipating the gospel call that brings the nations into the blessings promised to Abraham's offspring.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 22

  • Gen 12:7Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
  • Judg 4:11Now Heber the Kenite had moved away from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent by the great tree of Zaanannim, which was near Kedesh.
  • Exod 2:18When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”
  • Exod 3:1Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
  • Exod 6:7–8I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.
  • Ps 34:8Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
  • Num 23:19God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?
  • Exod 3:8I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
  • Gen 32:12But You have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to count.’”
  • Judg 1:16Now the descendants of Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenite, went up with the men of Judah from the City of Palms to the Wilderness of Judah in the Negev near Arad. They went to live among the people.
  • Gen 15:18On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—
  • Jer 50:5They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
  • Acts 7:5He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Abraham and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child.
  • Heb 6:18Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.
  • Zech 8:21–23and the residents of one city will go to another, saying: ‘Let us go at once to plead before the LORD and to seek the LORD of Hosts. I myself am going.’
  • Gen 13:15for all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever.
  • Exod 18:27Then Moses sent his father-in-law on his way, and Jethro returned to his own land.
  • Isa 2:3And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
  • Titus 1:2in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.
  • Exod 18:1Now Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, heard about all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel, and how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.
  • Rev 22:17The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let the one who hears say, “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely.
  • 1 Sam 15:6And he warned the Kenites, “Since you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt, go on and get away from the Amalekites. Otherwise I will sweep you away with them.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (5)

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Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Numbers videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Numbers 10:29YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on NumbersMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.

How Numbers 10:29 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.