19:14 “‘This is the law: When a man dies 3 in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.
23:4 Then God met Balaam, who 7 said to him, “I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.”
1 tn The verb is עָלָה (’alah). The Hiphil infinitive construct functions in a temporal clause. The idea of arranging the lamps on the lampstand certainly involved raising the lamps and placing them on the tops of each shaft and branch. Some have taken the idea to mean cause the flame to go up, or light the lamps.
2 tn The imperfect tense forms part of the instruction, and so the translation has to indicate that. The instruction would seem obvious, but the light was to shine in the area immediately in front of the lampstand, so that it would illumine the way and illumine the table that was across the room (hence, “in front of”).
3 tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”
5 tn The expression for “in the open field” is literally “upon the face of the field” (עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה, ’al pÿne hassadeh). This ruling is in contrast now to what was contacted in the tent.
6 tn Heb “a dead body”; but in contrast to the person killed with a sword, this must refer to someone who died of natural causes.
7 sn See Matt 23:27 and Acts 23:3 for application of this by the time of Jesus.
7 tn The relative pronoun is added here in place of the conjunction to clarify that Balaam is speaking to God and not vice versa.