Bilangan 9:21

9:21 And when ¹  the cloud remained only ²  from evening until morning, when the cloud was taken up ³  the following morning, then they traveled on. Whether by day or by night, when the cloud was taken up they traveled.

Bilangan 11:18

11:18 “And say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves ⁴  for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing ⁵  of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat, ⁶  for life ⁷  was good for us in Egypt?” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.

Bilangan 16:13

16:13 Is it a small thing ⁸  that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, ⁹  to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince ¹⁰  over us?

Bilangan 22:4

22:4 So the Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “Now this mass of people ¹¹  will lick up everything around us, as the bull devours the grass of the field. Now Balak son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at this time.

Bilangan 31:30

31:30 From the Israelites’ half-share you are to take one portion out of fifty of the people, the cattle, the donkeys, and the sheep – from every kind of animal – and you are to give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle.”

[9:21]  ¹ tn The construction is the same in the preceding verse.

[9:21]  ² tn “Only” is supplied to reflect the contrast between the two verses.

[9:21]  ³ tn The construction in this half of the verse uses two vav (ו) consecutive clauses. The first is subordinated to the second as a temporal clause: “when…then….”

[11:18]  ⁴ tn The Hitpael is used to stress that they are to prepare for a holy appearance. The day was going to be special and so required their being set apart for it. But it is a holy day in the sense of the judgment that was to follow.

[11:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the ears.”

[11:18]  ⁶ tn Possibly this could be given an optative translation, to reflect the earlier one: “O that someone would give….” But the verb is not the same; here it is the Hiphil of the verb “to eat” – “who will make us eat” (i.e., provide meat for us to eat).

[11:18]  ⁷ tn The word “life” is not in the text. The expression is simply “it was for us,” or “we had good,” meaning “we had it good,” or “life was good.”

[16:13]  ⁸ tn The question is rhetorical. It was not a small thing to them – it was a big thing.

[16:13]  ⁹ tn The modern scholar who merely sees these words as belonging to an earlier tradition about going up to the land of Canaan that flows with milk and honey misses the irony here. What is happening is that the text is showing how twisted the thinking of the rebels is. They have turned things completely around. Egypt was the land flowing with milk and honey, not Canaan where they will die. The words of rebellion are seldom original, and always twisted.

[16:13]  ¹⁰ tn The verb הִשְׂתָּרֵר (histarer) is the Hitpael infinitive absolute that emphasizes the preceding תִשְׂתָּרֵר (tistarer), the Hitpael imperfect tense (both forms having metathesis). The verb means “to rule; to act like a prince; to make oneself a prince.” This is the only occurrence of the reflexive for this verb. The exact nuance is difficult to translate into English. But they are accusing Moses of seizing princely power for himself, perhaps making a sarcastic reference to his former status in Egypt. The rebels here are telling Moses that they had discerned his scheme, and so he could not “hoodwink” them (cf. NEB).

[22:4]  ¹¹ tn The word is simply “company,” but in the context he must mean a vast company – a horde of people.