Ulangan 9:26

9:26 I prayed to him: ¹  O, Lord God, ²  do not destroy your people, your valued property ³  that you have powerfully redeemed, ⁴  whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength. ⁵ 

Keluaran 34:10

34:10 He said, “See, I am going to make ⁶  a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done ⁷  in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am doing with you. ⁸ 

Bilangan 11:2

11:2 When the people cried to Moses, he ⁹  prayed to the Lord, and the fire died out. ¹⁰ 

Bilangan 11:1

The Israelites Complain

11:1 ¹¹ When the people complained, ¹²  it displeased ¹³  the Lord. When the Lord heard ¹⁴  it, his anger burned, ¹⁵  and so ¹⁶  the fire of the Lord ¹⁷  burned among them and consumed some of the outer parts of the camp.

1 Samuel 7:9

7:9 So Samuel took a nursing lamb ¹⁸  and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Samuel cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.

Yeremia 15:1

15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹⁹  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ²⁰  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ²¹ 

[9:26]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:26]  ² tn Heb “Lord Lord” (אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה, ’adonay yÿhvih). The phrase is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God” (אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהִים, ’adonay ’elohim). See also the note on the phrase “Lord God” in Deut 3:24.

[9:26]  ³ tn Heb “your inheritance”; NLT “your special (very own NRSV) possession.” Israel is compared to landed property that one would inherit from his ancestors and pass on to his descendants.

[9:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “you have redeemed in your greatness.”

[9:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “by your strong hand.”

[34:10]  ⁶ tn Here again is a use of the futur instans participle; the deictic particle plus the pronoun precedes the participle, showing what is about to happen.

[34:10]  ⁷ tn The verb here is בָּרָא (bara’, “to create”). The choice of this verb is to stress that these wonders would be supernaturally performed, for the verb is used only with God as the subject.

[34:10]  ⁸ sn The idea is that God will be doing awesome things in dealing with them, i.e., to fulfill his program.

[11:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “Moses.”

[11:2]  ¹⁰ sn Here is the pattern that will become in the wilderness experience so common – the complaining turns to a cry to Moses, which is then interpreted as a prayer to the Lord, and there is healing. The sequence presents a symbolic lesson, an illustration of the intercession of the Holy Spirit. The NT will say that in times of suffering Christians do not know how to pray, but the Spirit intercedes for them, changing their cries into the proper prayers (Rom 8).

[11:1]  ¹¹ sn The chapter includes the initial general complaints (vv. 1-3), the complaints about food (vv. 4-9), Moses’ own complaint to the Lord (vv. 10-15), God’s response to Moses (vv. 16-25), Eldad and Medad (vv. 26-29), and the quail (vv. 30-35). The first part records the burning of the camp, named Taberah. Here is one of the several naming narratives in the wilderness experience. The occasion for divine judgment is the complaining of the people. The passages serve to warn believers of all ages not to murmur as the Israelites did, for such complaining reveals a lack of faith in the power and goodness of God. For additional literature, see W. Brueggemann, “From Hurt to Joy, from Death to Life,” Int 28 (1974): 3-19; B. S. Childs, “The Etiological Tale Re-examined,” VT 24 (1974): 387-97; G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Wilderness; and A. C. Tunyogi, “The Rebellions of Israel,” JBL 81 (1962): 385-90.

[11:1]  ¹² tn The temporal clause uses the Hitpoel infinitive construct from אָנַן (’anan). It is a rare word, occurring in Lam 3:39. With this blunt introduction the constant emphasis of obedience to the word of the Lord found throughout the first ten chapters suddenly comes to an end. It is probable that the people were tired of moving for several days, the excitement of the new beginning died out quickly in the “great and terrible wilderness.” Resentment, frustration, discomfort – whatever it all involved – led to complaining and not gratitude.

[11:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “it was evil in the ears of the Lord.” The word רַע (ra’) is a much stronger word than “displeased” would suggest. The bold anthropomorphism shows that what the Lord heard was painful to him.

[11:1]  ¹⁴ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb as a temporal clause.

[11:1]  ¹⁵ tn The common Hebrew expression uses the verb חָרָה (harah, “to be hot, to burn, to be kindled”). The subject is אַפּוֹ (’appo), “his anger” or more literally, his nose, which in this anthropomorphic expression flares in rage. The emphasis is superlative – “his anger raged.”

[11:1]  ¹⁶ tn The vav (ו) consecutive does not simply show sequence in the verbs, but here expresses the result of the anger of the Lord for their complaining. With such a response to the complaining, one must conclude that it was unreasonable. There had been no long deprivation or endured suffering; the complaining was early and showed a rebellious spirit.

[11:1]  ¹⁷ sn The “fire of the Lord” is supernatural, for it is said to come from the Lord and not from a natural source. God gave them something to complain about – something to fear. The other significant place where this “fire of the Lord” destroyed was in the case of Nadab and Abihu who brought strange fire to the altar (Lev 10:2).

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a lamb of milk”; NAB “an unweaned lamb”; NIV “a suckling lamb”; NCV “a baby lamb.”

[15:1]  ¹⁹ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27, Deut 4:10.

[15:1]  sn Moses and Samuel were well-known for their successful intercession on behalf of Israel. See Ps 99:6-8 and see, e.g., Exod 32:11-14, 30-34; 1 Sam 7:5-9. The Lord is here rejecting Jeremiah’s intercession on behalf of the people (14:19-22).

[15:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “my soul would not be toward them.” For the usage of “soul” presupposed here see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 6 in the light of the complaints and petitions in Jeremiah’s prayer in 14:19, 21.

[15:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”