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 16:26

16:26 And he said to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked ⁴  men, and do not touch anything they have, lest you be destroyed because ⁵  of all their sins.” ⁶ 

Bilangan 16:33

16:33 They and all that they had went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed over them. So they perished from among the community.

Bilangan 21:2-3

21:2 So Israel made a vow ⁷  to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed deliver ⁸  this people into our ⁹  hand, then we will utterly destroy ¹⁰  their cities.” 21:3 The Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, ¹¹  and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of the place was called ¹²  Hormah.

Bilangan 24:20

Balaam’s Final Prophecies

24:20 Then Balaam ¹³  looked on Amalek and delivered this oracle: ¹⁴ 

“Amalek was the first ¹⁵  of the nations,

but his end will be that he will perish.”

[14:33]  ¹ tn The word is “shepherds.” It means that the people would be wilderness nomads, grazing their flock on available land.

[14:33]  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.

[14:33]  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.

[16:26]  ⁴ tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) has the sense of a guilty criminal. The word “wicked” sometimes gives the wrong connotation. These men were opposing the Lord, and so were condemned as criminals – they were guilty. The idea of “wickedness” therefore applies in that sense.

[16:26]  ⁵ tn The preposition bet (בְּ) in this line is causal – “on account of their sins.”

[16:26]  ⁶ sn The impression is that the people did not hear what the Lord said to Moses, but only what Moses said to the people as a result. They saw the brilliant cloud, and perhaps heard the sound of his voice, but the relaying of the instructions indicates they did not hear the actual instruction from the Lord himself.

[21:2]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text uses a cognate accusative with the verb: They vowed a vow. The Israelites were therefore determined with God’s help to defeat Arad.

[21:2]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text has the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of נָתַן (natan) to stress the point – if you will surely/indeed give.”

[21:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “my.”

[21:2]  ¹⁰ tn On the surface this does not sound like much of a vow. But the key is in the use of the verb for “utterly destroy” – חָרַם (kharam). Whatever was put to this “ban” or “devotion” belonged to God, either for his use, or for destruction. The oath was in fact saying that they would take nothing from this for themselves. It would simply be the removal of what was alien to the faith, or to God’s program.

[21:3]  ¹¹ tc Smr, Greek, and Syriac add “into his hand.”

[21:3]  ¹² tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject, and so here too is made passive. The name “Hormah” is etymologically connected to the verb “utterly destroy,” forming the popular etymology (or paronomasia, a phonetic wordplay capturing the significance of the event).

[24:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Balaam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[24:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he lifted up his oracle and said.” So also in vv. 21, 23.

[24:20]  ¹⁵ sn This probably means that it held first place, or it thought that it was “the first of the nations.” It was not the first, either in order or greatness.