Bilangan 5:21

5:21 Then the priest will put the woman under the oath of the curse ¹  and will say ²  to the her, “The Lord make you an attested curse ³  among your people, ⁴  if the Lord makes ⁵  your thigh fall away ⁶  and your abdomen swell; ⁷ 

Bilangan 16:17

16:17 And each of you ⁸  take his censer, put ⁹  incense in it, and then each of you present his censer before the Lord: 250 censers, along with you, and Aaron – each of you with his censer.”

Bilangan 22:34

22:34 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood against me in the road. ¹⁰  So now, if it is evil in your sight, ¹¹  I will go back home.” ¹² 

[5:21]  ¹ sn For information on such curses, see M. R. Lehmann, “Biblical Oaths,” ZAW 81 (1969): 74-92; A. C. Thiselton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings,” JTS 25 (1974): 283-99; and F. C. Fensham, “Malediction and Benediction in Ancient Vassal Treaties and the Old Testament,” ZAW 74 (1962): 1-9.

[5:21]  ² tn Heb “the priest will say.”

[5:21]  ³ tn This interpretation takes the two nouns as a hendiadys. The literal wording is “the Lord make you a curse and an oath among the people.” In what sense would she be an oath? The point of the whole passage is that the priest is making her take an oath to see if she has been sinful and will be cursed.

[5:21]  ⁴ sn The outcome of this would be that she would be quoted by people in such forms of expression as an oath or a curse (see Jer 29:22).

[5:21]  ⁵ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition to form an adverbial clause: “in the giving of the Lord…,” meaning, “if and when the Lord makes such and such to happen.”

[5:21]  ⁶ tn TEV takes the expression “your thigh” as a euphemism for the genitals: “cause your genital organs to shrink.”

[5:21]  ⁷ sn Most commentators take the expressions to be euphemisms of miscarriage or stillbirth, meaning that there would be no fruit from an illegitimate union. The idea of the abdomen swelling has been reinterpreted by NEB to mean “fall away.” If this interpretation stands, then the idea is that the woman has become pregnant, and that has aroused the suspicion of the husband for some reason. R. K. Harrison (Numbers [WEC], 111-13) discusses a variety of other explanations for diseases and conditions that might be described by these terms. He translates it with “miscarriage,” but leaves open what the description might actually be. Cf. NRSV “makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.”

[16:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “and take, a man, his censer.”

[16:17]  ⁹ tn This verb and the following one are both perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutives. Following the imperative they carry the same force, but in sequence.

[22:34]  ¹⁰ sn Balaam is not here making a general confession of sin. What he is admitting to is a procedural mistake. The basic meaning of the word is “to miss the mark.” He now knows he took the wrong way, i.e., in coming to curse Israel.

[22:34]  ¹¹ sn The reference is to Balaam’s way. He is saying that if what he is doing is so perverse, so evil, he will turn around and go home. Of course, it did not appear that he had much of a chance of going forward.

[22:34]  ¹² tn The verb is the cohortative from “return”: I will return [me].