22:4 So the Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “Now this mass of people 2 will lick up everything around us, as the bull devours the grass of the field. Now Balak son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at this time.
25:6 Just then 3 one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers 4 a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of 5 the whole community of the Israelites, while they 6 were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
25:14 Now the name of the Israelite who was stabbed – the one who was stabbed with the Midianite woman – was Zimri son of Salu, a leader of a clan 7 of the Simeonites.
1 tn Or “sons.”
2 tn The word is simply “company,” but in the context he must mean a vast company – a horde of people.
3 tn The verse begins with the deictic particle וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh), pointing out the action that was taking place. It stresses the immediacy of the action to the reader.
4 tn Or “to his family”; or “to his clan.”
5 tn Heb “before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of.”
6 tn The vav (ו) at the beginning of the clause is a disjunctive because it is prefixed to the nonverbal form. In this context it is best interpreted as a circumstantial clause, stressing that this happened “while” people were weeping over the sin.
7 tn Heb “a father’s house.” So also in v. 15.
8 tn This is the same word as that translated “treachery.”
9 sn Cozbi’s father, Zur, was one of five Midianite kings who eventually succumbed to Israel (Num 31:8). When the text gives the name and family of a woman, it is asserting that she is important, at least for social reasons, among her people.