Bilangan 14:42

14:42 Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, and you will be ¹  defeated before your enemies.

Bilangan 13:30-31

13:30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses, saying, “Let us go up ²  and occupy it, ³  for we are well able to conquer it.” ⁴  13:31 But the men ⁵  who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!”

Bilangan 14:40

14:40 And early ⁶  in the morning they went up to the crest of the hill country, ⁷  saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that the Lord commanded, ⁸  for we have sinned.” ⁹ 

[14:42]  ¹ tn This verb could also be subordinated to the preceding: “that you be not smitten.”

[13:30]  ² tn The construction is emphatic, using the cohortative with the infinitive absolute to strengthen it: עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה (’aloh na’aleh, “let us go up”) with the sense of certainty and immediacy.

[13:30]  ³ tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive brings the cohortative idea forward: “and let us possess it”; it may also be subordinated to form a purpose or result idea.

[13:30]  ⁴ tn Here again the confidence of Caleb is expressed with the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense: יָכוֹל נוּכַל (yakhol nukhal), “we are fully able” to do this. The verb יָכַל (yakhal) followed by the preposition lamed means “to prevail over, to conquer.”

[13:31]  ⁵ tn The vav (ו) disjunctive on the noun at the beginning of the clause forms a strong adversative clause here.

[14:40]  ⁶ tn The verb וַיַּשְׁכִּמוּ (vayyashkimu) is often found in a verbal hendiadys construction: “They rose early…and they went up” means “they went up early.”

[14:40]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text says literally “the top of the hill,” but judging from the location and the terrain it probably means the heights of the hill country.

[14:40]  ⁸ tn The verb is simply “said,” but it means the place that the Lord said to go up to in order to fight.

[14:40]  ⁹ sn Their sin was unbelief. They could have gone and conquered the area if they had trusted the Lord for their victory. They did not, and so they were condemned to perish in the wilderness. Now, thinking that by going they can undo all that, they plan to go. But this is also disobedience, for the Lord said they would not now take the land, and yet they think they can. Here is their second sin, presumption.