Bilangan 6:6

6:6 “‘All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he must not contact ¹  a dead body. ² 

Bilangan 11:28

11:28 Joshua son of Nun, the servant ³  of Moses, one of his choice young men, ⁴  said, ⁵  “My lord Moses, stop them!” ⁶ 

[6:6]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb is simply “enter, go,” no doubt with the sense of go near.

[6:6]  ² tn The Hebrew has נֶפֶשׁ מֵת (nefesh met), literally a “dead person.” But since the word נֶפֶשׁ can also be used for animals, the restriction would be for any kind of corpse. Death was very much a part of the fallen world, and so for one so committed to the Lord, avoiding all such contamination would be a witness to the greatest separation, even in a family.

[11:28]  ³ tn The form is the Piel participle מְשָׁרֵת (mÿsharet), meaning “minister, servant, assistant.” The word has a loftier meaning than the ordinary word for slave.

[11:28]  ⁴ tn The verb is בָּחַר (bakhar, “to choose”); here the form is the masculine plural participle with a suffix, serving as the object of the preposition מִן (min). It would therefore mean “[one of] his chosen men,” or “[one of] his choice men.”

[11:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “answered and said.”

[11:28]  ⁶ sn The effort of Joshua is to protect Moses’ prerogative as leader by stopping these men in the camp from prophesying. Joshua did not understand the significance in the Lord’s plan to let other share the burden of leadership.