Bilangan 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ²  to investigate is a land that devours ³  its inhabitants. ⁴  All the people we saw there ⁵  are of great stature.

Bilangan 27:21

27:21 And he will stand before Eleazar the priest, who ⁶  will seek counsel ⁷  for him before the Lord by the decision of the Urim. ⁸  At his command ⁹  they will go out, and at his command they will come in, he and all the Israelites with him, the whole community.”

[13:32]  ¹ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ² tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.

[13:32]  ³ tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.

[13:32]  ⁴ sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.

[13:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[27:21]  ⁶ tn The passage simply has “and he will ask,” but Eleazar is clearly the subject now.

[27:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “ask.”

[27:21]  ⁸ sn The new leader would not have the privilege that Moses had in speaking to God face to face. Rather, he would have to inquire of the Lord through the priest, and the priest would seek a decision by means of the Urim. The Urim and the Thummim were the sacred lots that the priest had in his pouch, the “breastplate” as it has traditionally been called. Since the Law had now been fully established, there would be fewer cases that the leader would need further rulings. Now it would simply be seeking the Lord’s word for matters such as whether to advance or not. The size, shape or substance of these objects is uncertain. See further C. Van Dam, The Urim and Thummim.

[27:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “mouth,” meaning what he will say.