13:17 When Moses sent 4 them to investigate the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev, 5 and then go up into the hill country
21:1 12 When the Canaanite king of Arad 13 who lived in the Negev 14 heard that Israel was approaching along the road to Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoner.
35:5 “You must measure 15 from outside the wall of the town on the east 1,000 yards, 16 and on the south side 1,000 yards, and on the west side 1,000 yards, and on the north side 1,000 yards, with the town in the middle. 17 This territory must belong to them as grazing land for the towns.
1 tn The expression refers to the corner or extremity of the Negev, the South.
2 tn Or “the Ascent of Scorpions” (עַקְרַבִּים [’aqrabbim] means “scorpions” in Hebrew).
3 tn Heb “its going forth,” or the way it runs.
3 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb of the same formation to express a temporal clause.
4 tn The instructions had them first go up into the southern desert of the land, and after passing through that, into the hill country of the Canaanites. The text could be rendered “into the Negev” as well as “through the Negev.”
4 tc The MT has the singular, but the ancient versions and Smr have the plural.
5 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the following clause. The first verse gave the account of their journey over the whole land; this section focuses on what happened in the area of Hebron, which would be the basis for the false report.
6 sn These names are thought to be three clans that were in the Hebron area (see Josh 15:14; Judg 1:20). To call them descendants of Anak is usually taken to mean that they were large or tall people (2 Sam 21:18-22). They were ultimately driven out by Caleb.
7 sn The text now provides a brief historical aside for the readers. Zoan was probably the city of Tanis, although that is disputed today by some scholars. It was known in Egypt in the New Kingdom as “the fields of Tanis,” which corresponded to the “fields of Zoar” in the Hebrew Bible (Ps 78:12, 43).
5 tn Heb “by the side [hand] of.”
6 sn For more discussion on these people groups, see D. J. Wiseman, ed., Peoples of Old Testament Times.
6 sn This chapter has several events in it: the victory over Arad (vv. 1-3), the plague of serpents (vv. 4-9), the approach to Moab (vv. 10-20), and the victory over Sihon and Og (vv. 21-35). For information, see D. M. Gunn, “The ‘Battle Report’: Oral or Scribal Convention.” JBL 93 (1974): 513-18; and of the extensive literature on the archaeological site, see EAEHL 1:74-89.
7 sn The name Arad probably refers to a place a number of miles away from Tel Arad in southern Israel. The name could also refer to the whole region (like Edom).
8 tn Or “the south”; “Negev” has become a technical name for the southern desert region and is still in use in modern times.
7 tn The verb is the Qal perfect of מָדַד (madad, “to measure”). With its vav (ו) consecutive it carries the same instructional force as the imperfect.
8 tn Heb “two thousand cubits” (also three more times in this verse). This would be a distance of 3,000 feet or 1,000 yards (1,350 meters).
9 sn The precise nature of the layout described here is not altogether clear. V. 4 speaks of the distance from the wall as being 500 yards; v. 5, however, describes measurements of 1,000 yards. Various proposals have been made in order to harmonize vv. 4 and 5. P. J. Budd, Numbers (WBC), 376, makes the following suggestion: “It may be best to assume that the cubits of the Levitical pasture lands are cubit frontages of land – in other words on each side of the city there was a block of land with a frontage of two thousand cubits (v 5), and a depth of 1000 cubits (v 4).”