Bilangan 9:13

9:13 But ¹  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ²  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ³  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ⁴ 

Bilangan 14:3-4

14:3 Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” 14:4 So they said to one another, ⁵  “Let’s appoint ⁶  a leader ⁷  and return ⁸  to Egypt.”

Bilangan 14:24-25

14:24 Only my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully – I will bring him into the land where he had gone, and his descendants ⁹  will possess it. 14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ¹⁰  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Bilangan 14:34

14:34 According to the number of the days you have investigated this land, forty days – one day for a year – you will suffer for ¹¹  your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. ¹² 

Bilangan 14:41

14:41 But Moses said, “Why ¹³  are you now transgressing the commandment ¹⁴  of the Lord? It will not succeed!

Bilangan 14:43

14:43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.”

Bilangan 18:7

18:7 But you and your sons with you are responsible for your priestly duties, for everything at the altar and within the curtain. And you must serve. I give you the priesthood as a gift for service; but the unauthorized person who approaches must be put to death.”

Bilangan 20:21

20:21 So Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border; therefore Israel turned away from him.

Bilangan 21:33

21:33 Then they turned and went up by the road to Bashan. And King Og of Bashan and all his forces ¹⁵  marched out against them to do battle at Edrei.

Bilangan 23:11

Balaam Relocates

23:11 Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but on the contrary ¹⁶  you have only blessed them!” ¹⁷ 

Bilangan 23:20

23:20 Indeed, I have received a command ¹⁸  to bless;

he has blessed, ¹⁹  and I cannot reverse it. ²⁰ 

Bilangan 24:10

24:10 Then Balak became very angry at Balaam, and he struck his hands together. ²¹  Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and look, you have done nothing but bless ²²  them these three times!

Bilangan 25:4

God’s Punishment

25:4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders ²³  of the people, and hang them up ²⁴  before the Lord in broad daylight, ²⁵  so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”

Bilangan 32:13

32:13 So the Lord’s anger was kindled against the Israelites, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all that generation that had done wickedly before ²⁶  the Lord was finished. ²⁷ 

Bilangan 32:15

32:15 For if you turn away from following him, he will once again abandon ²⁸  them in the wilderness, and you will be the reason for their destruction.” ²⁹ 

Bilangan 33:7

33:7 They traveled from Etham, and turned again to Pi-hahiroth, which is before Baal-Zephon; and they camped before Migdal.

Bilangan 34:4-5

34:4 and then the border will turn from the south to the Scorpion Ascent, ³⁰  continue to Zin, and then its direction ³¹  will be from the south to Kadesh Barnea. Then it will go to Hazar Addar and pass over to Azmon. 34:5 There the border will turn from Azmon to the Brook of Egypt, and then its direction is to the sea. ³² 

[9:13]  ¹ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) signals a contrastive clause here: “but the man” on the other hand….

[9:13]  ² tn The verb חָדַל (khadal) means “to cease; to leave off; to fail.” The implication here is that it is a person who simply neglects to do it. It does not indicate that he forgot, but more likely that he made the decision to leave it undone.

[9:13]  ³ sn The pronouncement of such a person’s penalty is that his life will be cut off from his people. There are at least three possible interpretations for this: physical death at the hand of the community (G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 84-85), physical and/or spiritual death at the hand of God (J. Milgrom, “A Prolegomenon to Lev 17:11,” JBL 90 [1971]: 154-55), or excommunication or separation from the community (R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 109). The direct intervention of God seem to be the most likely in view of the lack of directions for the community to follow. Excommunication from the camp in the wilderness would have been tantamount to a death sentence by the community, and so there really are just two views.

[9:13]  ⁴ tn The word for “sin” here should be interpreted to mean the consequences of his sin (so a metonymy of effect). Whoever willingly violates the Law will have to pay the consequences.

[14:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “a man to his brother.”

[14:4]  ⁶ tn The verb is נָתַן (natan, “to give”), but this verb has quite a wide range of meanings in the Bible. Here it must mean “to make,” “to choose,” “to designate” or the like.

[14:4]  ⁷ tn The word “head” (רֹאשׁ, ro’sh) probably refers to a tribal chief who was capable to judge and to lead to war (see J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word רֹאשׁ as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 [1969]: 1-10).

[14:4]  ⁸ tn The form is a cohortative with a vav (ו) prefixed. After the preceding cohortative this could also be interpreted as a purpose or result clause – in order that we may return.

[14:24]  ⁹ tn Heb “seed.”

[14:25]  ¹⁰ sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south – unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.

[14:34]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you shall bear.”

[14:34]  ¹² tn The phrase refers to the consequences of open hostility to God, or perhaps abandonment of God. The noun תְּנוּאָה (tÿnu’ah) occurs in Job 33:10 (perhaps). The related verb occurs in Num 30:6 HT (30:5 ET) and 32:7 with the sense of “disallow, discourage.” The sense of the expression adopted in this translation comes from the meticulous study of R. Loewe, “Divine Frustration Exegetically Frustrated,” Words and Meanings, 137-58.

[14:41]  ¹³ tn The line literally has, “Why is this [that] you are transgressing….” The demonstrative pronoun is enclitic; it brings the force of “why in the world are you doing this now?”

[14:41]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “mouth.”

[21:33]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “people.”

[23:11]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text uses הִנֵּה (hinneh) here to stress the contrast.

[23:11]  ¹⁷ tn The construction is emphatic, using the perfect tense and the infinitive absolute to give it the emphasis. It would have the force of “you have done nothing but bless,” or “you have indeed blessed.” The construction is reminiscent of the call of Abram and the promise of the blessing in such elaborate terms.

[23:20]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew text simply has “I have received [to] bless.” The infinitive is the object of the verb, telling what he received. Balaam was not actually commanded to bless, but was given the word of blessing so that he was given a divine decree that would bless Israel.

[23:20]  ¹⁹ sn The reference is probably to the first speech, where the Lord blessed Israel. Balaam knows that there is nothing he can do to reverse what God has said.

[23:20]  ²⁰ tn The verb is the Hiphil of שׁוּב (shuv), meaning “to cause to return.” He cannot return God’s word to him, for it has been given, and it will be fulfilled.

[24:10]  ²¹ sn This is apparently a sign of contempt or derision (see Job 27:23; and Lam 2:15).

[24:10]  ²² tn The construction is emphatic, using the infinitive absolute with the perfect tense for “bless.”

[25:4]  ²³ sn The meaning must be the leaders behind the apostasy, for they would now be arrested. They were responsible for the tribes’ conformity to the Law, but here they had not only failed in their duty, but had participated. The leaders were executed; the rest of the guilty died by the plague.

[25:4]  ²⁴ sn The leaders who were guilty were commanded by God to be publicly exposed by hanging, probably a reference to impaling, but possibly some other form of harsh punishment. The point was that the swaying of their executed bodies would be a startling warning for any who so blatantly set the Law aside and indulged in apostasy through pagan sexual orgies.

[25:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in the sun.” This means in broad daylight.

[32:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[32:13]  ²⁷ tn The verb is difficult to translate, since it has the idea of “complete, finish” (תָּמָם, tamam). It could be translated “consumed” in this passage (so KJV, ASV); NASB “was destroyed.”

[32:15]  ²⁸ tn The construction uses a verbal hendiadys with the verb “to add” serving to modify the main verb.

[32:15]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and you will destroy all this people.”

[34:4]  ³⁰ tn Or “the Ascent of Scorpions” (עַקְרַבִּים [’aqrabbim] means “scorpions” in Hebrew).

[34:4]  ³¹ tn Heb “its going forth,” or the way it runs.

[34:5]  ³² sn That is, the Mediterranean.