Bilangan 24:24

24:24 Ships will come from the coast of Kittim, ¹ 

and will afflict Asshur, ²  and will afflict Eber,

and he will also perish forever.” ³ 

Yeremia 2:10

2:10 Go west ⁴  across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus ⁵  and see.

Send someone east to Kedar ⁶  and have them look carefully.

See if such a thing as this has ever happened:

[24:24]  ¹ tc The MT is difficult. The Kittim refers normally to Cyprus, or any maritime people to the west. W. F. Albright proposed emending the line to “islands will gather in the north, ships from the distant sea” (“The Oracles of Balaam,” JBL 63 [1944]: 222-23). Some commentators accept that reading as the original state of the text, since the present MT makes little sense.

[24:24]  ² tn Or perhaps “Assyria” (so NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[24:24]  ³ tn Or “it will end in utter destruction.”

[2:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “For go west.”

[2:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “pass over to the coasts of Kittim.” The words “west across the sea” in this line and “east of” in the next are implicit in the text and are supplied in the translation to give geographical orientation.

[2:10]  sn The Hebrew term translated Cyprus (“Kittim”) originally referred to the island of Cyprus but later was used for the lands in the west, including Macedonia (1 Macc 1:1; 8:5) and Rome (Dan 11:30). It is used here as part of a figure called merism to denote the lands in the west as opposed to Kedar which was in the east. The figure includes polar opposites to indicate totality, i.e., everywhere from west to east.

[2:10]  ⁶ sn Kedar is the home of the Bedouin tribes in the Syro-Arabian desert. See Gen 25:18 and Jer 49:38. See also the previous note for the significance of the reference here.