9:15 5 On 6 the day that the tabernacle was set up, 7 the cloud 8 covered the tabernacle – the tent of the testimony 9 – and from evening until morning there was 10 a fiery appearance 11 over the tabernacle.
14:40 And early 12 in the morning they went up to the crest of the hill country, 13 saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that the Lord commanded, 14 for we have sinned.” 15
22:13 So Balaam got up in the morning, and said to the princes of Balak, “Go to your land, 16 for the Lord has refused to permit me to go 17 with you.”
1 tn The construction is the same in the preceding verse.
2 tn “Only” is supplied to reflect the contrast between the two verses.
3 tn The construction in this half of the verse uses two vav (ו) consecutive clauses. The first is subordinated to the second as a temporal clause: “when…then….”
4 tn Heb “between the evenings” meaning between dusk and dark.
7 sn This section (Num 9:15-23) recapitulates the account in Exod 40:34 but also contains some additional detail about the cloud that signaled Israel’s journeys. Here again material from the book of Exodus is used to explain more of the laws for the camp in motion.
8 tn Heb “and/now on the day.”
9 tn The construction uses the temporal expression with the Hiphil infinitive construct followed by the object, the tabernacle. “On the day of the setting up of the tabernacle” leaves the subject unstated, and so the entire clause may be expressed in the passive voice.
10 sn The explanation and identification of this cloud has been a subject of much debate. Some commentators have concluded that it was identical with the cloud that led the Israelites away from Egypt and through the sea, but others have made a more compelling case that this is a different phenomenon (see ZPEB 4:796). A number of modern scholars see the description as a retrojection from later, perhaps Solomonic times (see G. H. Davies, IDB 3:817). Others have tried to connect it with Ugaritic terminology, but unconvincingly (see T. W. Mann, “The Pillar of Cloud in the Reed Sea Narrative,” JBL 90 [1971]: 15-30; G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, 32-66, 209-13; and R. Good, “Cloud Messengers?” UF 10 [1978]: 436-37).
11 sn The cloud apparently was centered over the tent, over the spot of the ark of the covenant in the most holy place. It thereafter spread over the whole tabernacle.
12 tn The imperfect tense in this and the next line should be classified as a customary imperfect, stressing incomplete action but in the past time – something that used to happen, or would happen.
13 tn Heb “like the appearance of fire.”
10 tn The verb וַיַּשְׁכִּמוּ (vayyashkimu) is often found in a verbal hendiadys construction: “They rose early…and they went up” means “they went up early.”
11 tn The Hebrew text says literally “the top of the hill,” but judging from the location and the terrain it probably means the heights of the hill country.
12 tn The verb is simply “said,” but it means the place that the
13 sn Their sin was unbelief. They could have gone and conquered the area if they had trusted the
13 tc The LXX adds “to your lord.”
14 tn The main verb is the Piel perfect, “he has refused.” This is followed by two infinitives. The first (לְתִתִּי, lÿtitti) serves as a complement or direct object of the verb, answering the question of what he refused to do – “to give me.” The second infinitive (לַהֲלֹךְ, lahalokh) provides the object for the preceding infinitive: “to grant me to go.”
16 sn The name Bamoth Baal means “the high places of Baal.”
19 tn Heb “as the grain offering of the morning and as its drink offering.”
22 tn Heb “him.”