John Calvin Commentary Numbers 12:6

"And he said, Hear now my words: if there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known unto him in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream." — Numbers 12:6 (ASV)

If there be a prophet among you. He mentions two methods by which the will of God was usually revealed to the prophets, namely, visions and dreams. He does not, however, here use the word חזון chazon,⁴² which signifies a prophecy as well as a vision, but מראה, marah, expressive of some visible appearance, which confirms and ratifies the truth of His word (oracle) to the eyes and all the senses. Thus, God often appeared to His servants, so that His majesty might be impressed upon His communications to them. Before the giving of the Law, such visions were frequently granted to the Patriarchs, while sometimes they were instructed by dreams. Thus Joel, when he promises that under the kingdom of Christ there will be a complete fullness of all revelations, also enumerates these two forms of them:

“Your sons (he says) and your daughters shall prophesy:
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).

But we know that the prophets described the kingdom of Christ in the likeness of their own times. Therefore, when God presents these two ordinary modes of revelation, He sets Moses apart from the condition of others, as if to exalt him by a special privilege. Now, since Aaron and Miriam were not superior to others, they were thus reminded that they were far behind Moses in rank. With this in view, he is said to be “faithful in all God’s house;” in quoting which passage to prove his inferiority to Christ, the Apostle says he was a servant, and a member of the Church, whereas Christ was its Lord and builder, or creator (Hebrews 3:2–6).

But the difference between them is more clearly specified immediately afterward, namely, that God speaks to him “mouth to mouth,” by which expression, as I have said elsewhere,⁴³ more intimate and familiar communication is denoted. Still, God does not thereby deprive the prophets of anything necessary for fulfilling their office but merely establishes Moses as the chief of them all. It is true, indeed, that the Patriarchs are so ranked—as Abraham was called a prophet by the mouth of God (Genesis 20:7), and the Prophet thus names him together with Isaac and Jacob in Psalm 105:15—but God at the same time includes the whole system which He afterwards chose to employ under the Law, and so prefers Moses to all who were to arise in the future.

Furthermore, the word vision is used in a different sense from that which it had just above. For God, distinguishing Moses from others, says that He speaks with him in vision,⁴⁴ which it would be absurd to explain as meaning an ordinary or common vision. It therefore here signifies actual sight,⁴⁵ which He contrasts with “dark speeches (aenigmata) and similitude,” which word is equivalent to a representation (figura), if the negative applies to both. For there are some who understand similitude as a vivid and explicit image, as if God were asserting that He reveals His face to Moses, and therefore read the clause adversatively, as I have noted in the margin. But the first interpretation is the most natural.

I have elsewhere discussed dreams and visions. It will then be sufficient to summarize by saying that they were seals for the confirmation of prophecies, so that the Prophets, as if sent from heaven, might with full confidence declare themselves to be God’s lawful interpreters. For visions had their own peculiar marks to distinguish them from phantoms and false imaginations, and dreams also were accompanied by their signs to remove all doubt of their authenticity. The prophets, therefore, were fully conscious of their calling, so that nothing was lacking for the assurance of faith. Meanwhile, the false prophets dressed themselves up in these masks to deceive. Thus Jeremiah, in refutation of their ungodly pretences, says:

“The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?” (Jeremiah 23:28).

⁴² חזון, a vision, from , a vision, from חזה, to see, to look upon. , to see, to look upon. מראה, either the act of sight, or the object of sight; a seeing, or an appearance, from , either the act of sight, or the object of sight; a seeing, or an appearance, from ראה, to see, to perceive. — W., to see, to perceive. — W.

⁴³ On Exodus 33:11, , ante, vol. 3, p. 372..

⁴⁴ A.V. “apparently.”“apparently.”

⁴⁵ “Veue, ou regard de quelque figure visible;” the view or look of some visible figure. — Fr.