23:14 So Balak brought Balaam 2 to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, 3 where 4 he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
1:16 for they 7 are eager 8 to inflict harm, 9
and they hasten 10 to shed blood. 11
1 tn The Hebrew text has “on the altar,” but since there were seven of each animal and seven altars, the implication is that this means on each altar.
2 tn Heb “he brought him”; the referents (Balak and Balaam) have been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Some scholars do not translate this word as “Pisgah,” but rather as a “lookout post” or an “elevated place.”
4 tn Heb “and he built.”
5 tn The construction is a cognate accusative with the verb, expressing a specific sacrifice.
6 tn Heb “bread, food.” Presumably this was a type of peace offering, where the person bringing the offering ate the animal being sacrificed.
7 tn Heb “their feet.” The term “feet” is a synecdoche of the part (= their feet) for the whole person (= they), stressing the eagerness of the robbers.
8 tn Heb “run.” The verb רוּץ (ruts, “run”) functions here as a metonymy of association, meaning “to be eager” to do something (BDB 930 s.v.).
9 tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”
10 tn The imperfect tense verbs may be classified as habitual or progressive imperfects describing their ongoing continual activity.
11 tc The BHS editors suggest deleting this entire verse from MT because it does not appear in several versions (Codex B of the LXX, Coptic, Arabic) and is similar to Isa 59:7a. It is possible that it was a scribal gloss (intentional addition) copied into the margin from Isaiah. But this does not adequately explain the differences. It does fit the context well enough to be original.