Bilangan 11:18

11:18 “And say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves ¹  for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing ²  of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat, ³  for life ⁴  was good for us in Egypt?” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.

Bilangan 11:20

11:20 but a whole month, ⁵  until it comes out your nostrils and makes you sick, ⁶  because you have despised ⁷  the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why ⁸  did we ever come out of Egypt?”’”

[11:18]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “in the ears.”

[11:18]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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.”

[11:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “a month of days.” So also in v. 21.

[11:20]  ⁶ tn The expression לְזָרָה (lÿzarah) has been translated “ill” or “loathsome.” It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The Greek text interprets it as “sickness.” It could be nausea or vomiting (so G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 112) from overeating.

[11:20]  ⁷ sn The explanation is the interpretation of their behavior – it is in reality what they have done, even though they would not say they despised the Lord. They had complained and shown a lack of faith and a contempt for the program, which was in essence despising the Lord.

[11:20]  ⁸ tn The use of the demonstrative pronoun here (“why is this we went out …”) is enclitic, providing emphasis to the sentence: “Why in the world did we ever leave Egypt?”