Bilangan 13:3

13:3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command ¹  of the Lord. All of them were leaders ²  of the Israelites.

Bilangan 15:39

15:39 You must have this tassel so that you may look at it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and obey them and so that you do not follow ³  after your own heart and your own eyes that lead you to unfaithfulness. ⁴ 

Bilangan 16:46

16:46 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put burning coals from the altar in it, place incense on it, and go quickly into the assembly and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord – the plague has begun!”

Bilangan 20:19

20:19 Then the Israelites said to him, “We will go along the highway, and if we ⁵  or our cattle drink any of your water, we will pay for it. We will only pass through on our feet, without doing anything else.”

Bilangan 24:17

24:17 ‘I see him, but not now;

I behold him, but not close at hand. ⁶ 

A star ⁷  will march forth ⁸  out of Jacob,

and a scepter ⁹  will rise out of Israel.

He will crush the skulls ¹⁰  of Moab,

and the heads ¹¹  of all the sons of Sheth. ¹² 

Bilangan 27:14

27:14 For ¹³  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ¹⁴  rebelled against my command ¹⁵  to show me as holy ¹⁶  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Bilangan 32:33

Land Assignment

32:33 So Moses gave to the Gadites, the Reubenites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the realm of King Sihon of the Amorites, and the realm of King Og of Bashan, the entire land with its cities and the territory surrounding them. ¹⁷ 

Bilangan 36:1

Women and Land Inheritance

36:1 Then the heads of the family groups ¹⁸  of the Gileadites, the descendant of Machir, the descendant of Manasseh, who were from the Josephite families, approached and spoke before Moses ¹⁹  and the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families. ²⁰ 

[13:3]  ¹ tn Heb “mouth.”

[13:3]  ² tn Heb “heads.”

[15:39]  ³ tn Heb “seek out, look into.”

[15:39]  ⁴ tn This last clause is a relative clause explaining the influence of the human heart and physical sight. It literally says, “which you go whoring after them.” The verb for “whoring” may be interpreted to mean “act unfaithfully.” So, the idea is these influences lead to unfaithful activity: “after which you act unfaithfully.”

[20:19]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text uses singular pronouns, “I” and “my,” but it is the people of Israel that are intended, and so it may be rendered in the plural. Similarly, Edom speaks in the first person, probably from the king. But it too could be rendered “we.”

[24:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “near.”

[24:17]  ⁷ sn This is a figure for a king (see also Isa 14:12) not only in the Bible but in the ancient Near Eastern literature as a whole. The immediate reference of the prophecy seems to be to David, but the eschatological theme goes beyond him. There is to be a connection made between this passage and the sighting of a star in its ascendancy by the magi, who then traveled to Bethlehem to see the one born King of the Jews (Matt 2:2). The expression “son of a star” (Aram Bar Kochba) became a title for a later claimant to kingship, but he was doomed by the Romans in a.d. 135.

[24:17]  ⁸ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it is equal to the imperfect expressing the future. The verb דָּרַךְ (darakh), related to the noun “way, road,” seems to mean something like tread on, walk, march.”

[24:17]  ⁹ sn The “scepter” is metonymical for a king who will rise to power. NEB strangely rendered this as “comet” to make a parallel with “star.”

[24:17]  ¹⁰ tn The word is literally “corners,” but may refer to the corners of the head, and so “skull.”

[24:17]  ¹¹ tc The MT reads “shatter, devastate.” Smr reads קֹדְקֹד (qodqod, “head; crown; pate”). Smr follows Jer 48:45 which appears to reflect Num 24:17.

[24:17]  ¹² sn The prophecy begins to be fulfilled when David defeated Moab and Edom and established an empire including them. But the Messianic promise extends far beyond that to the end of the age and the inclusion of these defeated people in the program of the coming King.

[27:14]  ¹³ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

[27:14]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

[27:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “mouth.”

[27:14]  ¹⁶ 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.

[32:33]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the land with its cities in the borders of the cities of the land all around.”

[36:1]  ¹⁸ tn The expression is “the heads of the fathers by the family of the Gileadites.”

[36:1]  ¹⁹ tn The Greek and the Syriac add “and before Eleazar the priest.”

[36:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “heads of the fathers.”