Bilangan 31:6

Campaign Against the Midianites

31:6 So Moses sent them to the war, one thousand from every tribe, with Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest, who was in charge ¹  of the holy articles ²  and the signal trumpets.

Bilangan 10:6-7

10:6 And when you blow an alarm the second time, then the camps that are located on the south side must begin to travel. ³  An alarm must be sounded ⁴  for their journeys. 10:7 But when you assemble the community, ⁵  you must blow, but you must not sound an alarm. ⁶ 

[31:6]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the idiom that these “were in his hand,” meaning that he had the responsibility over them.

[31:6]  ² sn It is not clear what articles from the sanctuary were included. Tg. Ps.-J. adds (interpretively) “the Urim and Thummim.”

[10:6]  ³ tc The MT does not mention the departures of the northerly and westerly tribes. The Greek text completes the description by adding them, making a full schedule of the departure of the groups of tribes. The Greek is not likely to be original, however, since it carries all the signs of addition to complete the text, making a smooth, full reading. The MT is to be preferred; it apparently used two of the groups to give the idea.

[10:6]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text has “they shall blow an alarm”; the sentence without a formal subject should be taken as a passive idea.

[10:7]  ⁵ tn There is no expressed subject in the initial temporal clause. It simply says, “and in the assembling the assembly.” But since the next verb is the second person of the verb, that may be taken as the intended subject here.

[10:7]  ⁶ sn The signal for moving camp was apparently different in tone and may have been sharper notes or a different sequence. It was in some way distinguishable.