Exodus 33:5

33:5 For ¹  the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I went up among you for a moment, ²  I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments, ³  that I may know ⁴  what I should do to you.’” ⁵ 

Numbers 16:21

16:21 “Separate yourselves ⁶  from among this community, ⁷  that I may consume them in an instant.”

Numbers 16:45

16:45 “Get away from this community, so that I can consume them in an instant!” But they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground. ⁸ 

Psalms 73:19

73:19 How desolate they become in a mere moment!

Terrifying judgments make their demise complete! ⁹ 

Psalms 73:2

73:2 But as for me, my feet almost slipped;

my feet almost slid out from under me. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 3:1

Psalm 3 ¹¹ 

A psalm of David, written when he fled from his son Absalom. ¹² 

3:1 Lord, how ¹³  numerous are my enemies!

Many attack me. ¹⁴ 

[33:5]  ¹ tn The verse simply begins “And Yahweh said.” But it is clearly meant to be explanatory for the preceding action of the people.

[33:5]  ² tn The construction is formed with a simple imperfect in the first half and a perfect tense with vav (ו) in the second half. Heb “[in] one moment I will go up in your midst and I will destroy you.” The verse is certainly not intended to say that God was about to destroy them. That, plus the fact that he has announced he will not go in their midst, leads most commentators to take this as a conditional clause: “If I were to do such and such, then….”

[33:5]  ³ tn The Hebrew text also has “from on you.”

[33:5]  ⁴ tn The form is the cohortative with a vav (ו) following the imperative; it therefore expresses the purpose or result: “strip off…that I may know.” The call to remove the ornaments must have been perceived as a call to show true repentance for what had happened. If they repented, then God would know how to deal with them.

[33:5]  ⁵ tn This last clause begins with the interrogative “what,” but it is used here as an indirect interrogative. It introduces a noun clause, the object of the verb “know.”

[16:21]  ⁶ tn The verb is הִבָּדְלוּ (hibbadÿlu), the Niphal imperative of בָּדַל (badal). This is the same word that was just used when Moses reminded the Levites that they had been separated from the community to serve the Lord.

[16:21]  ⁷ sn The group of people siding with Korah is meant, and not the entire community of the people of Israel. They are an assembly of rebels, their “community” consisting in their common plot.

[16:45]  ⁸ tn Heb “they fell on their faces.”

[73:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “they come to an end, they are finished, from terrors.”

[73:2]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew verb normally means “to pour out,” but here it must have the nuance “to slide.”

[3:1]  ¹¹ sn Psalm 3. The psalmist acknowledges that he is confronted by many enemies (vv. 1-2). But, alluding to a divine oracle he has received (vv. 4-5), he affirms his confidence in God’s ability to protect him (vv. 3, 6) and requests that God make his promise a reality (vv. 7-8).

[3:1]  ¹² sn According to Jewish tradition, David offered this prayer when he was forced to flee from Jerusalem during his son Absalom’s attempted coup (see 2 Sam 15:13-17).

[3:1]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew term מָה (mah, “how”) is used here as an adverbial exclamation (see BDB 553 s.v.).

[3:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “many rise up against me.”