The princes dug the well; the nobles of the people hollowed it out with their scepters and with their staffs.” From the wilderness the Israelites went on to Mattanah,
We have here an account of the several stages and removals of the children of Israel, till they came into the plains of Moab, out of which they at length passed over Jordan into Canaan, as we read in the beginning of Joshua. Natural motions are quicker the nearer they are to their centre.
Commenting on Numbers 21:10-20
And from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth. All the Targums interpret this, and the following verse, not of the journeying of the children of Israel, but of the motion of the well, that that, from the place from whence it was given them, descended with them into the valleys, and from thence to the high places, as these words signify: and indeed...
The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by [the direction of] the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness [they went] to Mattanah: (g) Only Moses and Aaron, the heads of the people, struck the rock with the rod or staff, which gave water as a well that was deep digged.