Bilangan 9:13

9:13 But ¹  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ²  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ³  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ⁴ 

Bilangan 14:34

14:34 According to the number of the days you have investigated this land, forty days – one day for a year – you will suffer for ⁵  your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. ⁶ 

[9:13]  ¹ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) signals a contrastive clause here: “but the man” on the other hand….

[9:13]  ² tn The verb חָדַל (khadal) means “to cease; to leave off; to fail.” The implication here is that it is a person who simply neglects to do it. It does not indicate that he forgot, but more likely that he made the decision to leave it undone.

[9:13]  ³ sn The pronouncement of such a person’s penalty is that his life will be cut off from his people. There are at least three possible interpretations for this: physical death at the hand of the community (G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 84-85), physical and/or spiritual death at the hand of God (J. Milgrom, “A Prolegomenon to Lev 17:11,” JBL 90 [1971]: 154-55), or excommunication or separation from the community (R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 109). The direct intervention of God seem to be the most likely in view of the lack of directions for the community to follow. Excommunication from the camp in the wilderness would have been tantamount to a death sentence by the community, and so there really are just two views.

[9:13]  ⁴ tn The word for “sin” here should be interpreted to mean the consequences of his sin (so a metonymy of effect). Whoever willingly violates the Law will have to pay the consequences.

[14:34]  ⁵ tn Heb “you shall bear.”

[14:34]  ⁶ tn The phrase refers to the consequences of open hostility to God, or perhaps abandonment of God. The noun תְּנוּאָה (tÿnu’ah) occurs in Job 33:10 (perhaps). The related verb occurs in Num 30:6 HT (30:5 ET) and 32:7 with the sense of “disallow, discourage.” The sense of the expression adopted in this translation comes from the meticulous study of R. Loewe, “Divine Frustration Exegetically Frustrated,” Words and Meanings, 137-58.