Numbers 11:11-19

11:11 And Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you afflicted ¹  your servant? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that ²  you lay the burden of this entire people on me? 11:12 Did I conceive this entire people? ³  Did I give birth to ⁴  them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a foster father ⁵  bears a nursing child,’ to the land which you swore to their fathers? 11:13 From where shall I get ⁶  meat to give to this entire people, for they cry to me, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat!’ ⁷  11:14 I am not able to bear this entire people alone, ⁸  because it ⁹  is too heavy for me! 11:15 But if you are going to deal ¹⁰  with me like this, then kill me immediately. ¹¹  If I have found favor in your sight then do not let me see my trouble.” ¹² 

The Response of God

11:16 ¹³ The Lord said to Moses, “Gather to me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know are elders of the people and officials ¹⁴  over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting; let them take their position there with you. 11:17 Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take part of the spirit that is on you, and will put it on them, and they will bear some of the burden of the people with you, so that you do not bear it ¹⁵  all by yourself.

11:18 “And say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves ¹⁶  for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing ¹⁷  of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat, ¹⁸  for life ¹⁹  was good for us in Egypt?” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat. 11:19 You will eat, not just one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days,

Jeremiah 6:11

6:11 I am as full of anger as you are, Lord, ²⁰ 

I am tired of trying to hold it in.”

The Lord answered, ²¹ 

“Vent it, then, ²²  on the children who play in the street

and on the young men who are gathered together.

Husbands and wives are to be included, ²³ 

as well as the old and those who are advanced in years.

Jeremiah 20:14-18

20:14 Cursed be the day I was born!

May that day not be blessed when my mother gave birth to me. ²⁴ 

20:15 Cursed be the man

who made my father very glad

when he brought him the news

that a baby boy had been born to him! ²⁵ 

20:16 May that man be like the cities ²⁶ 

that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.

May he hear a cry of distress in the morning

and a battle cry at noon.

20:17 For he did not kill me before I came from the womb,

making my pregnant mother’s womb my grave forever. ²⁷ 

20:18 Why did I ever come forth from my mother’s womb?

All I experience is trouble and grief,

and I spend my days in shame. ²⁸ 

John 4:1

Departure From Judea

4:1 Now when Jesus ²⁹  knew that the Pharisees ³⁰  had heard that he ³¹  was winning ³²  and baptizing more disciples than John

John 4:3

4:3 he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee. ³³ 

John 4:9

4:9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you – a Jew ³⁴  – ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water ³⁵  to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common ³⁶  with Samaritans.) ³⁷ 

[11:11]  ¹ tn The verb is the Hiphil of רָעַע (ra’a’, “to be evil”). Moses laments (with the rhetorical question) that God seems to have caused him evil.

[11:11]  ² tn The infinitive construct with the preposition is expressing the result of not finding favor with God (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 12-13, §57). What Moses is claiming is that because he has been given this burden God did not show him favor.

[11:12]  ³ sn The questions Moses asks are rhetorical. He is actually affirming that they are not his people, that he did not produce them, but now is to support them. His point is that God produced this nation, but has put the burden of caring for their needs on him.

[11:12]  ⁴ tn The verb means “to beget, give birth to.” The figurative image from procreation completes the parallel question, first the conceiving and second the giving birth to the nation.

[11:12]  ⁵ tn The word אֹמֵן (’omen) is often translated “nurse,” but the form is a masculine form and would better be rendered as a “foster parent.” This does not work as well, though, with the יֹנֵק (yoneq), the “sucking child.” The two metaphors are simply designed to portray the duty of a parent to a child as a picture of Moses’ duty for the nation. The idea that it portrays God as a mother pushes it too far (see M. Noth, Numbers [OTL], 86-87).

[11:13]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew text simply has “from where to me flesh?” which means “from where will I have meat?”

[11:13]  ⁷ tn The cohortative coming after the imperative stresses purpose (it is an indirect volitive).

[11:14]  ⁸ tn The word order shows the emphasis: “I am not able, I by myself, to bear all this people.” The infinitive לָשֵׂאת (lase’t) serves as the direct object of the verb. The expression is figurative, for bearing or carrying the people means being responsible for all their needs and cares.

[11:14]  ⁹ tn The subject of the verb “heavy” is unstated; in the context it probably refers to the people, or the burden of caring for the people. This responsibility was turning out to be a heavier responsibility than Moses anticipated. Alone he was totally inadequate.

[11:15]  ¹⁰ tn The participle expresses the future idea of what God is doing, or what he is going to be doing. Moses would rather be killed than be given a totally impossible duty over a people that were not his.

[11:15]  ¹¹ tn The imperative of הָרַג (harag) is followed by the infinitive absolute for emphasis. The point is more that the infinitive adds to the emphasis of the imperative mood, which would be immediate compliance.

[11:15]  ¹² tn Or “my own ruin” (NIV). The word “trouble” here probably refers to the stress and difficulty of caring for a complaining group of people. The suffix on the noun would be objective, perhaps stressing the indirect object of the noun – trouble for me. The expression “on my trouble” (בְּרָעָתִי, bÿra’ati) is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” According to this tradition the original reading in v. 15 was [to look] “on your evil” (בְּרָעָתֶךָ, bÿra’atekha), meaning “the calamity that you bring about” for Israel. However, since such an expression could be mistakenly thought to attribute evil to the Lord, the ancient scribes changed it to the reading found in the MT.

[11:16]  ¹³ sn The Lord provides Spirit-empowered assistance for Moses. Here is another variation on the theme of Moses’ faith. Just as he refused to lead alone and was given Aaron to share the work, so here he protests the burden and will share it with seventy elders. If God’s servant will not trust wholeheartedly, that individual will not be used by God as he or she might have been. Others will share in the power and the work. Probably one could say that it was God’s will for others to share this leadership – but not to receive it through these circumstances.

[11:16]  ¹⁴ tn The “officials” (שֹׁטְּרִים, shottÿrim) were a group of the elders who seem to have had some administrative capacities. The LXX used the word “scribes.” For further discussion, see R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 69-70.

[11:17]  ¹⁵ tn The imperfect tense here is to be classified as a final imperfect, showing the result of this action by God. Moses would be relieved of some of the responsibility when these others were given the grace to understand and to resolve cases.

[11:18]  ¹⁶ tn The Hitpael is used to stress that they are to prepare for a holy appearance. The day was going to be special and so required their being set apart for it. But it is a holy day in the sense of the judgment that was to follow.

[11:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in the ears.”

[11:18]  ¹⁸ tn Possibly this could be given an optative translation, to reflect the earlier one: “O that someone would give….” But the verb is not the same; here it is the Hiphil of the verb “to eat” – “who will make us eat” (i.e., provide meat for us to eat).

[11:18]  ¹⁹ tn The word “life” is not in the text. The expression is simply “it was for us,” or “we had good,” meaning “we had it good,” or “life was good.”

[6:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I am full of the wrath of the Lord.”

[6:11]  ²¹ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the words that follow. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:11]  ²² tn Heb “Pour it out.”

[6:11]  ²³ tn Heb “are to be captured.”

[20:14]  ²⁴ sn From the heights of exaltation, Jeremiah returns to the depths of despair. For similar mood swings in the psalms of lament compare Ps 102. Verses 14-18 are similar in tone and mood to Job 3:1-10. They are very forceful rhetorical ways of Job and Jeremiah expressing the wish that they had never been born.

[20:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Cursed be the man who brought my father the news saying, ‘A son, a male, has been born to you,’ making glad his joy.” This verse has been restructured for English stylistic purposes.

[20:16]  ²⁶ sn The cities alluded to are Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the Jordan plain which had become proverbial for their wickedness and for the destruction that the Lord brought on them because of it. See Isa 1:9-10; 13:19; Jer 23:14; 49:18.

[20:17]  ²⁷ tn Heb “because he did not kill me from the womb so my mother might be to me for my grave and her womb eternally pregnant.” The sentence structure has been modified and the word “womb” moved from the last line to the next to the last line for English stylistic purposes and greater clarity.

[20:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Why did I come forth from the womb to see [= so that I might see] trouble and grief and that my days might be consumed in shame.”

[4:1]  ²⁹ tc Several early and important witnesses, along with the majority of later ones (Ì^66c,75 A B C L W^s Ψ 083 ˹³ 33 Ï sa), have κύριος (kurio", “Lord”) here instead of ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsou", “Jesus”). As significant as this external support is, the internal evidence seems to be on the side of ᾿Ιησοῦς. “Jesus” is mentioned two more times in the first two verses of chapter four in a way that is stylistically awkward (so much so that the translation has substituted the pronoun for the first one; see tn note below). This seems to be sufficient reason to motivate scribes to change the wording to κύριος. Further, the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is not without decent support, though admittedly not as strong as that for κύριος (Ì^66* א D Θ 086 ˹ 565 1241 al lat bo). On the other hand, this Gospel speaks of Jesus as Lord in the evangelist’s narrative descriptions elsewhere only in 11:2; 20:18, 20; 21:12; and probably 6:23, preferring ᾿Ιησοῦς most of the time. This fact could be used to argue that scribes, acquainted with John’s style, changed κύριος to ᾿Ιησοῦς. But the immediate context generally is weighed more heavily than an author’s style. It is possible that neither word was in the original text and scribes supplied what they thought most appropriate (see TCGNT 176). But without ms evidence to this effect coupled with the harder reading ᾿Ιησοῦς, this conjecture must remain doubtful. All in all, it is best to regard ᾿Ιησοῦς as the original reading here.

[4:1]  ³⁰ sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

[4:1]  ³¹ tn Grk “Jesus”; the repetition of the proper name is somewhat redundant in English (see the beginning of the verse) and so the pronoun (“he”) has been substituted here.

[4:1]  ³² tn Grk “was making.”

[4:3]  ³³ sn The author doesn’t tell why Jesus chose to set out once more for Galilee. Some have suggested that the Pharisees turned their attention to Jesus because John the Baptist had now been thrown into prison. But the text gives no hint of this. In any case, perhaps Jesus simply did not want to provoke a confrontation at this time (knowing that his “hour” had not yet come).

[4:9]  ³⁴ tn Or “a Judean.” Here BDAG 478 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαίος 2.a states, “Judean (with respect to birth, nationality, or cult).” The same term occurs in the plural later in this verse. In one sense “Judean” would work very well in the translation here, since the contrast is between residents of the two geographical regions. However, since in the context of this chapter the discussion soon becomes a religious rather than a territorial one (cf. vv. 19-26), the translation “Jew” has been retained here and in v. 22.

[4:9]  ³⁵ tn “Water” is supplied as the understood direct object of the infinitive πεῖν (pein).

[4:9]  ³⁶ tn D. Daube (“Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: the Meaning of συγχράομαι [Jn 4:7ff],” JBL 69 [1950]: 137-47) suggests this meaning.

[4:9]  ³⁷ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.