Numbers 15:21

15:21 You must give to the Lord some of the first of your finely ground flour as a raised offering in your future generations.

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.”

Numbers 18:12

18:12 “All the best of the olive oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat, the first fruits of these things that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. ⁵ 

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).

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Balaam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “and he lifted up his oracle and said.” So also in vv. 21, 23.

³ 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.

¹ tn This form may be classified as a perfect of resolve – he has decided to give them to them, even though this is a listing of what they will receive.