Numbers 7:8

7:8 and he gave four carts and eight oxen to the Merarites, as their service required, under the authority ¹  of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.

Numbers 14:10

14:10 However, the whole community threatened to stone them. ²  But ³  the glory ⁴  of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the tent ⁵  of meeting.

Numbers 14:25

14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ⁶  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Numbers 14:36

14:36 The men whom Moses sent to investigate the land, who returned and made the whole community murmur against him by producing ⁷  an evil report about the land,

Numbers 16:2

16:2 and rebelled against Moses, along with some of the Israelites, 250 leaders ⁸  of the community, chosen from the assembly, ⁹  famous men. ¹⁰ 

Numbers 19:14

19:14 “‘This is the law: When a man dies ¹¹  in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.

Numbers 20:1

The Israelites Complain Again

20:1 ¹² Then the entire community of Israel ¹³  entered the wilderness of Zin in the first month, ¹⁴  and the people stayed in Kadesh. ¹⁵  Miriam died and was buried there. ¹⁶ 

Numbers 21:9

21:9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that if a snake had bitten someone, when he looked at the bronze snake he lived. ¹⁷ 

Numbers 31:21

31:21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone into the battle, “This is the ordinance of the law that the Lord commanded Moses:

Numbers 31:26

31:26 “You and Eleazar the priest, and all the family leaders of the community, take the sum ¹⁸  of the plunder that was captured, both people and animals.

Numbers 33:2

33:2 Moses recorded their departures ¹⁹  according to their journeys, by the commandment ²⁰  of the Lord; now these are their journeys according to their departures.

Numbers 36:13

36:13 These are the commandments and the decisions that the Lord commanded the Israelites through the authority ²¹  of Moses, on the plains of Moab by the Jordan River ²²  opposite Jericho. ²³ 

¹ tn Heb “hand.”

² tn Heb “said to stone them with stones.” The verb and the object are not from the same root, but the combination nonetheless forms an emphasis equal to the cognate accusative.

³ tn The vav (ו) on the noun “glory” indicates a strong contrast, one that interrupts their threatened attack.

⁴ sn The glory of the Lord refers to the reality of the Lord’s presence in a manifestation of his power and splendor. It showed to all that God was a living God. The appearance of the glory indicated blessing for the obedient, but disaster for the disobedient.

⁵ tc The Greek, Syriac, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “in the cloud over the tent.”

³ 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.

⁴ tn The verb is the Hiphil infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition from the root יָצָא (yatsa’, “to bring out”). The use of the infinitive here is epexegetical, that is, explaining how they caused the people to murmur.

⁵ tn Heb “princes” (so KJV, ASV).

⁶ tn These men must have been counselors or judges of some kind.

⁷ tn Heb “men of name,” or “men of renown.”

⁶ tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”

⁷ sn This chapter is the account of how Moses struck the rock in disobedience to the Lord, and thereby was prohibited from entering the land. For additional literature on this part, see E. Arden, “How Moses Failed God,” JBL 76 (1957): 50-52; J. Gray, “The Desert Sojourn of the Hebrews and the Sinai Horeb Tradition,” VT 4 (1954): 148-54; T. W. Mann, “Theological Reflections on the Denial of Moses,” JBL 98 (1979): 481-94; and J. R. Porter, “The Role of Kadesh-Barnea in the Narrative of the Exodus,” JTS 44 (1943): 130-43.

⁸ tn The Hebrew text stresses this idea by use of apposition: “the Israelites entered, the entire community, the wilderness.”

⁹ sn The text does not indicate here what year this was, but from comparing the other passages about the itinerary, this is probably the end of the wanderings, the fortieth year, for Aaron died some forty years after the exodus. So in that year the people come through the wilderness of Zin and prepare for a journey through the Moabite plains.

¹⁰ sn The Israelites stayed in Kadesh for some time during the wandering; here the stop at Kadesh Barnea may have lasted several months. See the commentaries for the general itinerary.

¹¹ sn The death of Miriam is recorded without any qualifications or epitaph. In her older age she had been self-willed and rebellious, and so no doubt humbled by the vivid rebuke from God. But she had made her contribution from the beginning.

⁸ sn The image of the snake was to be a symbol of the curse that the Israelites were experiencing; by lifting the snake up on a pole Moses was indicating that the curse would be drawn away from the people – if they looked to it, which was a sign of faith. This symbol was later stored in the temple, until it became an object of worship and had to be removed (2 Kgs 18:4). Jesus, of course, alluded to it and used it as an illustration of his own mission. He would become the curse, and be lifted up, so that people who looked by faith to him would live (John 3:14). For further material, see D. J. Wiseman, “Flying Serpents,” TynBul 23 (1972): 108-10; and K. R. Joines, “The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult,” JBL 87 (1968): 245-56.

⁹ tn The idiom here is “take up the head,” meaning take a census, or count the totals.

¹⁰ tn Heb “their goings out.”

¹¹ tn Heb “mouth.”

¹¹ tn Heb “by the hand.”

¹² tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹³ map For the location of Jericho see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.