Bilangan 7:1

The Leader’s Offerings

7:1 ¹ When Moses had completed setting up the tabernacle, ²  he anointed it and consecrated it and all its furnishings, and he anointed and consecrated the altar and all its utensils.

Bilangan 9:1

Passover Regulations

9:1 ³ The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out ⁴  of the land of Egypt:

Bilangan 19:14

19:14 “‘This is the law: When a man dies ⁵  in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.

Bilangan 21:3

21:3 The Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, ⁶  and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of the place was called ⁷  Hormah.

[7:1]  ¹ sn This long and repetitious chapter has several parts to it: the introduction (vv. 1-3), the assigning of gifts (vv. 4-9), the time of presentation (vv. 10-11), and then the tribes (vv. 12-83), and then a summary (vv. 84-89).

[7:1]  ² tn The construction of this line begins with the temporal indicator (traditionally translated “and it came to pass”) and then after the idiomatic “in the day of” (= “when”) uses the Piel infinitive construct from כָּלָה (kalah). The infinitive is governed by the subjective genitive, “Moses,” the formal subject of the clause. The object of the infinitive is the second infinitive, “to set up” (לְהָקִים, lÿhaqim). This infinitive, the Hiphil, serves as the direct object, answering the question of what it was that Moses completed. The entire clause is an adverbial clause of time.

[7:1]  sn This chapter belongs chronologically after Lev 8:11, because Aaron and his sons were not yet made the celebrants and officiants of the new shrine (completed in Exodus). Here then chapters 7-9 are actually earlier than chapters 1-6, and form a supplement by adding information not found in Exodus and Leviticus. The first verse here recapitulates the first act of Moses in consecrating the shrine (Exod 30:23-31).

[9:1]  ³ sn The chapter has just the two sections, the observance of the Passover (vv. 1-14) and the cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness (vv. 15-23). It must be remembered that the material in vv. 7-9 is chronologically earlier than vv. 1-6, as the notices in the text will make clear. The two main discussions here are the last major issues to be reiterated before dealing with the commencement of the journey.

[9:1]  ⁴ tn The temporal clause is formed with the infinitive construct of יָצָא (yatsa’, “to go out; to leave”). This verse indicates that a full year had passed since the exodus and the original Passover; now a second ruling on the Passover is included at the beginning of the second year. This would have occurred immediately after the consecration of the tabernacle, in the month before the census at Sinai.

[19:14]  ⁵ tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”

[21:3]  ⁶ tc Smr, Greek, and Syriac add “into his hand.”

[21:3]  ⁷ tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject, and so here too is made passive. The name “Hormah” is etymologically connected to the verb “utterly destroy,” forming the popular etymology (or paronomasia, a phonetic wordplay capturing the significance of the event).