Bilangan 6:2

6:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and tell them, ‘When either a man or a woman ¹  takes a special vow, ²  to take a vow ³  as a Nazirite, ⁴  to separate ⁵  himself to the Lord,

Bilangan 14:25

14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ⁶  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Bilangan 15:13

15:13 “‘Every native-born person must do these things in this way to present an offering made by fire as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

Bilangan 21:11

21:11 Then they traveled on from Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim, ⁷  in the wilderness that is before Moab, on the eastern side. ⁸ 

Bilangan 24:7

24:7 He will pour the water out of his buckets, ⁹ 

and their descendants will be like abundant ¹⁰  water; ¹¹ 

their king will be greater than Agag, ¹² 

and their kingdom will be exalted.

Bilangan 35:3

35:3 Thus they will have towns in which to live, and their grazing lands will be for their cattle, for their possessions, and for all their animals.

[6:2]  ¹ tn The formula is used here again: “a man or a woman – when he takes.” The vow is open to both men and women.

[6:2]  ² tn The vow is considered special in view of the use of the verb יַפְלִא (yafli’), the Hiphil imperfect of the verb “to be wonderful, extraordinary.”

[6:2]  ³ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct followed by the cognate accusative: “to vow a vow.” This intensifies the idea that the vow is being taken carefully.

[6:2]  ⁴ tn The name of the vow is taken from the verb that follows; נָזַר (nazar) means “to consecrate oneself,” and so the Nazirite is a consecrated one. These are folks who would make a decision to take an oath for a time or for a lifetime to be committed to the Lord and show signs of separation from the world. Samuel was to be a Nazirite, as the fragment of the text from Qumran confirms – “he will be a נָזִיר (nazir) forever” (1 Sam 1:22).

[6:2]  ⁵ tn The form of the verb is an Hiphil infinitive construct, forming the wordplay and explanation for the name Nazirite. The Hiphil is here an internal causative, having the meaning of “consecrate oneself” or just “consecrate to the Lord.”

[14:25]  ⁶ sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south – unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.

[21:11]  ⁷ sn These places are uncertain. Oboth may be some 15 miles (25 km) from the south end of the Dead Sea at a place called ‘Ain el-Weiba. Iye Abarim may be the modern Mahay at the southeastern corner of Moab. See J. Simons, The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament.

[21:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “the rising of the sun.”

[24:7]  ⁹ tc For this colon the LXX has “a man shall come out of his seed.” Cf. the Syriac Peshitta and Targum.

[24:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “many.”

[24:7]  ¹¹ sn These two lines are difficult, but the general sense is that of irrigation buckets and a well-watered land. The point is that Israel will be prosperous and fruitful.

[24:7]  ¹² sn Many commentators see this as a reference to Agag of 1 Sam 15:32-33, the Amalekite king slain by Samuel, for that is the one we know. But that is by no means clear, for this text does not identify this Agag. If it is that king, then this poem, or this line in this poem, would have to be later, unless one were to try to argue for a specific prophecy. Whoever this Agag is, he is a symbol of power.