Bilangan 14:33

14:33 and your children will wander ¹  in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, ²  until your dead bodies lie finished ³  in the wilderness.

Bilangan 27:14

27:14 For ⁴  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ⁵  rebelled against my command ⁶  to show me as holy ⁷  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Bilangan 33:8

33:8 They traveled from Pi-hahiroth, ⁸  and passed through the middle of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham, and camped in Marah.

¹ tn The word is “shepherds.” It means that the people would be wilderness nomads, grazing their flock on available land.

² tn Heb “you shall bear your whoredoms.” The imagery of prostitution is used throughout the Bible to reflect spiritual unfaithfulness, leaving the covenant relationship and following after false gods. Here it is used generally for their rebellion in the wilderness, but not for following other gods.

³ tn The infinitive is from תָּמַם (tamam), which means “to be complete.” The word is often used to express completeness in a good sense – whole, blameless, or the like. Here and in v. 35 it seems to mean “until your deaths have been completed.” See also Gen 47:15; Deut 2:15.

⁴ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

⁵ tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

⁶ tn Heb “mouth.”

⁷ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

⁸ tc So many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, Smr, Syriac, and Latin Vulgate. Other witnesses have “from before Hahiroth.”