Bilangan 24:8

24:8 God brought them out of Egypt.

They have, as it were, the strength of a young bull;

they will devour hostile people ¹ 

and will break their bones

and will pierce them through with arrows.

Bilangan 24:1

Balaam Prophesies Yet Again

24:1 ² When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, ³  he did not go as at the other times ⁴  to seek for omens, ⁵  but he set his face ⁶  toward the wilderness.

1 Samuel 2:10

2:10 The Lord shatters ⁷  his adversaries; ⁸ 

he thunders against them from ⁹  the heavens.

The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.

He will strengthen ¹⁰  his king

and exalt the power ¹¹  of his anointed one.” ¹² 

Mazmur 2:9

2:9 You will break them ¹³  with an iron scepter; ¹⁴ 

you will smash them like a potter’s jar!’” ¹⁵ 

[24:8]  ¹ tn Heb “they will devour nations,” their adversaries.

[24:1]  ² sn For a thorough study of the arrangement of this passage, see E. B. Smick, “A Study of the Structure of the Third Balaam Oracle,” The Law and the Prophets, 242-52. He sees the oracle as having an introductory strophe (vv. 3, 4), followed by two stanzas (vv. 5, 6) that introduce the body (vv. 7b-9b) before the final benediction (v. 9b).

[24:1]  ³ tn Heb “it was good in the eyes of the Lord.”

[24:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “as time after time.”

[24:1]  ⁵ tn The word נְחָשִׁים (nÿkhashim) means “omens,” or possibly “auguries.” Balaam is not even making a pretense now of looking for such things, because they are not going to work. God has overruled them.

[24:1]  ⁶ tn The idiom signifies that he had a determination and resolution to look out over where the Israelites were, so that he could appreciate more their presence and use that as the basis for his expressing of the oracle.

[2:10]  ⁷ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this line and in the next two lines are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:10]  ⁸ tc The present translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Vulgate in reading the plural (“his adversaries,” similarly many other English versions) rather than the singular (“his adversary”) of the Kethib.

[2:10]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew preposition here has the sense of “from within.”

[2:10]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this and the next line are understood as indicating what is anticipated and translated with the future tense, because at the time of Hannah’s prayer Israel did not yet have a king.

[2:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the horn,” here a metaphor for power or strength. Cf. NCV “make his appointed king strong”; NLT “increases the might of his anointed one.”

[2:10]  ¹² tc The LXX greatly expands v. 10 with an addition that seems to be taken from Jer 9:23-24.

[2:10]  sn The anointed one is the anticipated king of Israel, as the preceding line makes clear.

[2:9]  ¹³ tc The LXX reads “you will shepherd them.” This reading, quoted in the Greek text of the NT in Rev 2:27; 12:5; 19:15, assumes a different vocalization of the consonantal Hebrew text and understands the verb as רָעָה (ra’ah, “to shepherd”) rather than רָעָע (ra’a’, “to break”). But the presence of נָפַץ (nafats, “to smash”) in the next line strongly favors the MT vocalization.

[2:9]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew term שֵׁבֶט (shevet) can refer to a “staff” or “rod,” but here it probably refers to the Davidic king’s royal scepter, symbolizing his sovereignty.

[2:9]  ¹⁵ sn Like a potter’s jar. Before the Davidic king’s awesome power, the rebellious nations are like fragile pottery.