Numbers 15:20

15:20 You must offer up a cake of the first of your finely ground flour ¹  as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up.

Numbers 24:20

Balaam’s Final Prophecies

24:20 Then Balaam ²  looked on Amalek and delivered this oracle: ³ 

“Amalek was the first ⁴  of the nations,

but his end will be that he will perish.”

¹ tn Or “the first of your dough.” The phrase is not very clear. N. H. Snaith thinks it means a batch of loaves from the kneading trough – the first batch of the baking (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 251).

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Balaam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “and he lifted up his oracle and said.” So also in vv. 21, 23.

⁴ 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.