Numbers 14:25

14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ¹  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Numbers 14:2

14:2 And all the Israelites murmured ²  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ³  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ⁴  in this wilderness!

Numbers 24:20

Balaam’s Final Prophecies

24:20 Then Balaam ⁵  looked on Amalek and delivered this oracle: ⁶ 

“Amalek was the first ⁷  of the nations,

but his end will be that he will perish.”

¹ sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south – unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.

² tn The Hebrew verb “to murmur” is לוּן (lun). It is a strong word, signifying far more than complaining or grumbling, as some of the modern translations have it. The word is most often connected to the wilderness experience. It is paralleled in the literature with the word “to rebel.” The murmuring is like a parliamentary vote of no confidence, for they no longer trusted their leaders and wished to choose a new leader and return. This “return to Egypt” becomes a symbol of their lack of faith in the Lord.

³ tn The optative is expressed by לוּ (lu) and then the verb, here the perfect tense מַתְנוּ (matnu) – “O that we had died….” Had they wanted to die in Egypt they should not have cried out to the Lord to deliver them from bondage. Here the people became consumed with the fear and worry of what lay ahead, and in their panic they revealed a lack of trust in God.

⁴ tn Heb “died.”

⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Balaam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “and he lifted up his oracle and said.” So also in vv. 21, 23.

⁷ sn This probably means that it held first place, or it thought that it was “the first of the nations.” It was not the first, either in order or greatness.