Bilangan 5:15

5:15 then ¹  the man must bring his wife to the priest, and he must bring the offering required for her, one tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he must not pour olive oil on it or put frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of suspicion, ²  a grain offering for remembering, ³  for bringing ⁴  iniquity to remembrance.

Bilangan 5:18

5:18 Then the priest will have the woman stand before the Lord, uncover the woman’s head, and put the grain offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of suspicion. The priest will hold in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse. ⁵ 

Bilangan 6:20

6:20 then the priest must wave them as a wave offering ⁶  before the Lord; it is a holy portion for the priest, together with the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the raised offering. ⁷  After this the Nazirite may drink ⁸  wine.’

Bilangan 8:4

8:4 This is how the lampstand was made: ⁹  It was beaten work in gold; ¹⁰  from its shaft to its flowers it was beaten work. According to the pattern which the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.

Bilangan 9:13

9:13 But ¹¹  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ¹²  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ¹³  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ¹⁴ 

Bilangan 13:20

13:20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether or not there are forests in it. And be brave, ¹⁵  and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the time of year ¹⁶  for the first ripe grapes. ¹⁷ 

Bilangan 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹⁸  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ¹⁹  to investigate is a land that devours ²⁰  its inhabitants. ²¹  All the people we saw there ²²  are of great stature.

Bilangan 15:25

15:25 And the priest is to make atonement ²³  for the whole community of the Israelites, and they will be forgiven, ²⁴  because it was unintentional and they have brought their offering, an offering made by fire to the Lord, and their purification offering before the Lord, for their unintentional offense.

Bilangan 16:7

16:7 put fire in them, and set incense on them before the Lord tomorrow, and the man whom the Lord chooses will be holy. You take too much upon yourselves, you sons of Levi!”

Bilangan 16:40

16:40 It was a memorial for the Israelites, that no outsider who is not a descendant of ²⁵  Aaron should approach to burn incense before the Lord, that he might not become like Korah and his company – just as the Lord had spoken by the authority ²⁶  of Moses.

Bilangan 18:9

18:9 Of all the most holy offerings reserved ²⁷  from the fire this will be yours: Every offering of theirs, whether from every grain offering or from every purification offering or from every reparation offering which they bring to me, will be most holy for you and for your sons.

Bilangan 18:19

18:19 All the raised offerings of the holy things that the Israelites offer to the Lord, I have given to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual ordinance. It is a covenant of salt ²⁸  forever before the Lord for you and for your descendants with you.”

Bilangan 18:23

18:23 But the Levites must perform the service ²⁹  of the tent of meeting, and they must bear their iniquity. ³⁰  It will be a perpetual ordinance throughout your generations that among the Israelites the Levites ³¹  have no inheritance. ³² 

Bilangan 19:9

19:9 “‘Then a man who is ceremonially clean must gather up the ashes of the red heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They must be kept ³³  for the community of the Israelites for use in the water of purification ³⁴  – it is a purification for sin. ³⁵ 

Bilangan 19:20

19:20 But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person must be cut off from among the community, because he has polluted the sanctuary of the Lord; the water of purification was not sprinkled on him, so he is unclean.

Bilangan 21:26

21:26 For Heshbon was the city of King Sihon of the Amorites. Now he had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all of his land from his control, ³⁶  as far as the Arnon.

Bilangan 22:6

22:6 So ³⁷  now, please come and curse this nation ³⁸  for me, for they are too powerful for me. Perhaps I will prevail so that we may conquer them ³⁹  and drive them out of the land. For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, ⁴⁰  and whoever you curse is cursed.”

Bilangan 22:22

God Opposes Balaam

22:22 Then God’s anger was kindled ⁴¹  because he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose ⁴²  him. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him.

Bilangan 26:9

26:9 Eliab’s descendants were Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. It was Dathan and Abiram who as leaders of the community rebelled against Moses and Aaron with the followers ⁴³  of Korah when they rebelled against the Lord.

Bilangan 27:21

27:21 And he will stand before Eleazar the priest, who ⁴⁴  will seek counsel ⁴⁵  for him before the Lord by the decision of the Urim. ⁴⁶  At his command ⁴⁷  they will go out, and at his command they will come in, he and all the Israelites with him, the whole community.”

Bilangan 35:33

35:33 “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

[5:15]  ¹ tn All the conditions have been laid down now for the instruction to begin – if all this happened, then this is the procedure to follow.

[5:15]  ² tn The Hebrew word is “jealousy,” which also would be an acceptable translation here. But since the connotation is that suspicion has been raised about the other person, “suspicion” seems to be a better rendering in this context.

[5:15]  ³ tn The word “remembering” is זִכָּרוֹן (zikkaron); the meaning of the word here is not so much “memorial,” which would not communicate much, but the idea of bearing witness before God concerning the charges. The truth would come to light through this ritual, and so the attestation would stand. This memorial would bring the truth to light. It was a somber occasion, and so no sweet smelling additives were placed on the altar.

[5:15]  ⁴ tn The final verbal form, מַזְכֶּרֶת (mazkeret), explains what the memorial was all about – it was causing iniquity to be remembered.

[5:18]  ⁵ tn The expression has been challenged. The first part, “bitter water,” has been thought to mean “water of contention” (so NEB), but this is not convincing. It has some support in the versions which read “contention” and “testing,” no doubt trying to fit the passage better. N. H. Snaith (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 129) suggests from an Arabic word that it was designed to cause an abortion – but that would raise an entirely different question, one of who the father of a child was. And that has not been introduced here. The water was “bitter” in view of the consequences it held for her if she was proven to be guilty. That is then enforced by the wordplay with the last word, the Piel participle הַמְאָרֲרִים (ham’ararim). The bitter water, if it convicted her, would pronounce a curse on her. So she was literally holding her life in her hands.

[5:18]  sn This ancient ritual seems to have functioned like a lie detector test, with all the stress and tension involved. It can be compared to water tests in the pagan world, with the exception that in Israel it was stacked more toward an innocent verdict. It seems to have been a temporary provision, for this is the only place that it appears, and no provision is made for its use later. It may have served as a didactic force, warning more than actually legislating. No provision is made in it for a similar charge to be brought against the man, but in the case of the suspicion of the woman the man would be very hesitant to demand this test given the harshness on false witnessing in Israel. The passage remains a rather strange section of the Law.

[6:20]  ⁶ sn The ritual of lifting the hands filled with the offering and waving them in the presence of the Lord was designed to symbolize the transfer of the offering to God in the sight of all. This concludes the worshiper’s part; the offering now becomes the property of the priest – his priest’s due (or “raised/heave offering”).

[6:20]  ⁷ sn The “wave offering” may be interpreted as a “special gift” to be transferred to the Lord, and the “heave offering” as a “special contribution” to God – the priest’s due. These two offerings have also inspired a good deal of study.

[6:20]  ⁸ tn The imperfect tense here would then have the nuance of permission. It is not an instruction at this point; rather, the prohibition has been lifted and the person is free to drink wine.

[8:4]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text literally has “and this is the work of the lampstand,” but that rendering does not convey the sense that it is describing how it was made.

[8:4]  ¹⁰ sn The idea is that it was all hammered from a single plate of gold.

[9:13]  ¹¹ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) signals a contrastive clause here: “but the man” on the other hand….

[9:13]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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.

[13:20]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the Hitpael perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, from the root חָזַק (khazaq, “to be strong”). Here it could mean “strengthen yourselves” or “be courageous” or “determined.” See further uses in 2 Sam 10:12; 1 Kgs 20:22; 1 Chr 19:13.

[13:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Now the days were the days of.”

[13:20]  ¹⁷ sn The reference to the first ripe grapes would put the time somewhere at the end of July.

[13:32]  ¹⁸ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn Heb “in its midst.”

[15:25]  ²³ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive (וְכִפֶּר, vÿkhipper) to continue the instruction of the passage: “the priest shall make atonement,” meaning the priest is to make atonement for the sin (thus the present translation). This verb means “to expiate,” “to atone for,” “to pacify.” It describes the ritual events by which someone who was separated from the holy Lord God could find acceptance into his presence through the sacrificial blood of the substitutionary animal. See Lev 1 and Num 17:6-15.

[15:25]  ²⁴ tn Or “they will be forgiven.”

[16:40]  ²⁵ tn Heb “from the seed of.”

[16:40]  ²⁶ tn Heb “hand.”

[18:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “from the fire.” It probably refers to those parts that were not burned.

[18:19]  ²⁸ sn Salt was used in all the offerings; its importance as a preservative made it a natural symbol for the covenant which was established by sacrifice. Even general agreements were attested by sacrifice, and the phrase “covenant of salt” speaks of such agreements as binding and irrevocable. Note the expression in Ezra 4:14, “we have been salted with the salt of the palace.” See further J. F. Ross, IDB 4:167.

[18:23]  ²⁹ tn The verse begins with the perfect tense of עָבַד (’avad) with vav (ו) consecutive, making the form equal to the instructions preceding it. As its object the verb has the cognate accusative “service.”

[18:23]  ³⁰ sn The Levites have the care of the tent of meeting, and so they are responsible for any transgressions against it.

[18:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Levites) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[18:23]  ³² tn The Hebrew text uses both the verb and the object from the same root to stress the point: They will not inherit an inheritance. The inheritance refers to land.

[19:9]  ³³ tn Heb “it will be.”

[19:9]  ³⁴ tn The expression לְמֵי נִדָּה (lÿme niddah) is “for waters of impurity.” The genitive must designate the purpose of the waters – they are for cases of impurity, and so serve for cleansing or purifying, thus “water of purification.” The word “impurity” can also mean “abhorrent” because it refers to so many kinds of impurities. It is also called a purification offering; Milgrom notes that this is fitting because the sacrificial ritual involved transfers impurity from the purified to the purifier (pp. 62-72).

[19:9]  ³⁵ sn The ashes were to be stored somewhere outside the camp to be used in a water portion for cleansing someone who was defiled. This is a ritual that was enacted in the wilderness; it is something of a restoring rite for people alienated from community.

[21:26]  ³⁶ sn There is a justice, always, in the divine plan for the conquest of the land. Modern students of the Bible often think that the conquest passages are crude and unjust. But an understanding of the ancient Near East is critical here. This Sihon was not a part of the original population of the land. He himself invaded the territory and destroyed the population of Moab that was indigenous there and established his own kingdom. The ancient history is filled with such events; it is the way of life they chose – conquer or be conquered. For Israel to defeat them was in part a turning of their own devices back on their heads – “those that live by the sword will die by the sword.” Sihon knew this, and he did not wait, but took the war to Israel. Israel wanted to pass through, not fight. But now they would either fight or be pushed into the gorge. So God used Israel to defeat Sihon, who had no claim to the land, as part of divine judgment.

[22:6]  ³⁷ tn The two lines before this verse begin with the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh), and so they lay the foundation for these imperatives. In view of those circumstances, this is what should happen.

[22:6]  ³⁸ tn Heb “people.” So also in vv. 10, 17, 41.

[22:6]  ³⁹ tn The construction uses the imperfect tense אוּכַל (’ukhal, “I will be able”) followed by the imperfect tense נַכֶּה (nakkeh, “we will smite/attack/defeat”). The second verb is clearly the purpose or the result of the first, even though there is no conjunction or particle.

[22:6]  ⁴⁰ tn The verb is the Piel imperfect of בָּרַךְ (barakh), with the nuance of possibility: “whomever you may bless.” The Pual participle מְבֹרָךְ (mÿvorakh) serves as the predicate.

[22:22]  ⁴¹ sn God’s anger now seems to contradict the permission he gave Balaam just before this. Some commentators argue that God’s anger is a response to Balaam’s character in setting out – which the Bible does not explain. God saw in him greed and pleasure for the riches, which is why he was so willing to go.

[22:22]  ⁴² tn The word is שָׂטָן (satan, “to be an adversary, to oppose”).

[26:9]  ⁴³ tn Or “company” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); Heb “congregation.”

[27:21]  ⁴⁴ tn The passage simply has “and he will ask,” but Eleazar is clearly the subject now.

[27:21]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “ask.”

[27:21]  ⁴⁶ 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]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “mouth,” meaning what he will say.