Numbers 11:15

11:15 But if you are going to deal ¹  with me like this, then kill me immediately. ²  If I have found favor in your sight then do not let me see my trouble.” ³ 

Numbers 11:1

The Israelites Complain

11:1 ⁴ When the people complained, ⁵  it displeased ⁶  the Lord. When the Lord heard ⁷  it, his anger burned, ⁸  and so ⁹  the fire of the Lord ¹⁰  burned among them and consumed some of the outer parts of the camp.

Numbers 19:4

19:4 Eleazar the priest is to take ¹¹  some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of the blood seven times ¹²  directly in front of the tent of meeting.

Job 3:20-22

Longing for Death ¹³ 

3:20 “Why does God ¹⁴  give ¹⁵  light to one who is in misery, ¹⁶ 

and life to those ¹⁷  whose soul is bitter,

3:21 to ¹⁸  those who wait ¹⁹  for death that ²⁰  does not come,

and search for it ²¹ 

more than for hidden treasures,

3:22 who rejoice ²²  even to jubilation, ²³ 

and are exultant ²⁴  when ²⁵  they find the grave? ²⁶ 

Job 7:16

7:16 I loathe ²⁷  it; ²⁸  I do not want to live forever;

leave me alone, ²⁹  for my days are a vapor! ³⁰ 

Job 14:13

The Possibility of Another Life

14:13 “O that ³¹  you would hide me in Sheol, ³² 

and conceal me till your anger has passed! ³³ 

O that you would set me a time ³⁴ 

and then remember me! ³⁵ 

Jonah 4:3

4:3 So now, Lord, kill me instead, ³⁶  because I would rather die than live!” ³⁷ 

Jonah 4:9

4:9 God said to Jonah, “Are you really so very angry ³⁸  about the little plant?” And he said, “I am as angry ³⁹  as I could possibly be!” ⁴⁰ 

[11:15]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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.

[11:1]  ⁴ sn The chapter includes the initial general complaints (vv. 1-3), the complaints about food (vv. 4-9), Moses’ own complaint to the Lord (vv. 10-15), God’s response to Moses (vv. 16-25), Eldad and Medad (vv. 26-29), and the quail (vv. 30-35). The first part records the burning of the camp, named Taberah. Here is one of the several naming narratives in the wilderness experience. The occasion for divine judgment is the complaining of the people. The passages serve to warn believers of all ages not to murmur as the Israelites did, for such complaining reveals a lack of faith in the power and goodness of God. For additional literature, see W. Brueggemann, “From Hurt to Joy, from Death to Life,” Int 28 (1974): 3-19; B. S. Childs, “The Etiological Tale Re-examined,” VT 24 (1974): 387-97; G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Wilderness; and A. C. Tunyogi, “The Rebellions of Israel,” JBL 81 (1962): 385-90.

[11:1]  ⁵ tn The temporal clause uses the Hitpoel infinitive construct from אָנַן (’anan). It is a rare word, occurring in Lam 3:39. With this blunt introduction the constant emphasis of obedience to the word of the Lord found throughout the first ten chapters suddenly comes to an end. It is probable that the people were tired of moving for several days, the excitement of the new beginning died out quickly in the “great and terrible wilderness.” Resentment, frustration, discomfort – whatever it all involved – led to complaining and not gratitude.

[11:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “it was evil in the ears of the Lord.” The word רַע (ra’) is a much stronger word than “displeased” would suggest. The bold anthropomorphism shows that what the Lord heard was painful to him.

[11:1]  ⁷ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb as a temporal clause.

[11:1]  ⁸ tn The common Hebrew expression uses the verb חָרָה (harah, “to be hot, to burn, to be kindled”). The subject is אַפּוֹ (’appo), “his anger” or more literally, his nose, which in this anthropomorphic expression flares in rage. The emphasis is superlative – “his anger raged.”

[11:1]  ⁹ tn The vav (ו) consecutive does not simply show sequence in the verbs, but here expresses the result of the anger of the Lord for their complaining. With such a response to the complaining, one must conclude that it was unreasonable. There had been no long deprivation or endured suffering; the complaining was early and showed a rebellious spirit.

[11:1]  ¹⁰ sn The “fire of the Lord” is supernatural, for it is said to come from the Lord and not from a natural source. God gave them something to complain about – something to fear. The other significant place where this “fire of the Lord” destroyed was in the case of Nadab and Abihu who brought strange fire to the altar (Lev 10:2).

[19:4]  ¹¹ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it functions here as the equivalent of the imperfect of instruction.

[19:4]  ¹² sn Seven is a number with religious significance; it is often required in sacrificial ritual for atonement or for purification.

[3:20]  ¹³ sn Since he has survived birth, Job wonders why he could not have died a premature death. He wonders why God gives light and life to those who are in misery. His own condition throws gloom over life, and so he poses the question first generally, for many would prefer death to misery (20-22); then he comes to the individual, himself, who would prefer death (23). He closes his initial complaint with some depictions of his suffering that afflicts him and gives him no rest (24-26).

[3:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:20]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the simple imperfect, expressing the progressive imperfect nuance. But there is no formal subject to the verb, prompting some translations to make it passive in view of the indefinite subject (so, e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV). Such a passive could be taken as a so-called “divine passive” by which God is the implied agent. Job clearly means God here, but he stops short of naming him (see also the note on “God” earlier in this verse).

[3:20]  ¹⁶ sn In v. 10 the word was used to describe the labor and sorrow that comes from it; here the one in such misery is called the עָמֵל (’amel, “laborer, sufferer”).

[3:20]  ¹⁷ tn The second colon now refers to people in general because of the plural construct מָרֵי נָפֶשׁ (mare nafesh, “those bitter of soul/life”). One may recall the use of מָרָה (marah, “bitter”) by Naomi to describe her pained experience as a poor widow in Ruth 1:20, or the use of the word to describe the bitter oppression inflicted on Israel by the Egyptians (Exod 1:14). Those who are “bitter of soul” are those whose life is overwhelmed with painful experiences and suffering.

[3:21]  ¹⁸ tn The verse simply begins with the participle in apposition to the expressions in the previous verse describing those who are bitter. The preposition is added from the context.

[3:21]  ¹⁹ tn The verb is the Piel participle of חָכָה (khakhah, “to wait for” someone; Yahweh is the object in Isa 8:17; 64:3; Ps 33:20). Here death is the supreme hope of the miserable and the suffering.

[3:21]  ²⁰ tn The verse simply has the form אֵין (’en, “there is not”) with a pronominal suffix and a conjunction – “and there is not it” or “and it is not.” The LXX and the Vulgate add a verb to explain this form: “and obtain it not.”

[3:21]  ²¹ tn The parallel verb is now a preterite with a vav (ו) consecutive; it therefore has the nuance of a characteristic perfect or gnomic perfect – the English present tense.

[3:22]  ²² tn Here too the form is the participle in apposition “to him who is in misery” in v. 20. It continues the description of those who are destitute and would be delighted to die.

[3:22]  ²³ tn The Syriac has “and gather themselves together,” possibly reading גִּיל (gil, “rejoicing”) as גַּל (gal, “heap”). Some have tried to emend the text to make the word mean “heap” or “mound,” as in a funerary mound. While one could argue for a heap of stones as a funerary mound, the passage has already spoken of digging a grave, which would be quite different. And while such a change would make a neater parallelism in the verse, there is no reason to force such; the idea of “jubilation” fits the tenor of the whole verse easily enough and there is no reason to change it. A similar expression is found in Hos 9:1, which says, “rejoice not, O Israel, with jubilation.” Here the idea then is that these sufferers would rejoice “to the point of jubilation” at death.

[3:22]  ²⁴ tn This sentence also parallels an imperfect verb with the substantival participle of the first colon. It is translated as an English present tense.

[3:22]  ²⁵ tn The particle could be “when” or “because” in this verse.

[3:22]  ²⁶ sn The expression “when they find a grave” means when they finally die. The verse describes the relief and rest that the sufferer will obtain when the long-awaited death is reached.

[7:16]  ²⁷ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 107-8) thinks the idea of loathing or despising is problematic since there is no immediate object. He notes that the verb מָאַס (ma’as, “loathe”) is parallel to מָסַס (masas, “melt”) in the sense of “flow, drip” (Job 42:6). This would give the idea “I am fading away” or “I grow weaker,” or as Dhorme chooses, “I am pining away.”

[7:16]  ²⁸ tn There is no object for the verb in the text. But the most likely object would be “my life” from the last verse, especially since in this verse Job will talk about not living forever. Some have thought the object should be “death,” meaning that Job despised death more than the pains. But that is a forced meaning; besides, as H. H. Rowley points out, the word here means to despise something, to reject it. Job wanted death.

[7:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “cease from me.” This construction means essentially “leave me in peace.”

[7:16]  ³⁰ tn This word הֶבֶל (hevel) is difficult to translate. It means “breath; puff of air; vapor” and then figuratively, “vanity.” Job is saying that his life is but a breath – it is brief and fleeting. Compare Ps 144:4 for a similar idea.

[14:13]  ³¹ tn The optative mood is introduced here again with מִי יִתֵּן (mi yitten), literally, “who will give?”

[14:13]  ³² sn Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter 3 in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels.

[14:13]  ³³ tn The construction used here is the preposition followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive, forming an adverbial clause of time.

[14:13]  ³⁴ tn This is the same word used in v. 5 for “limit.”

[14:13]  ³⁵ tn The verb זָכַר (zakhar) means more than simply “to remember.” In many cases, including this one, it means “to act on what is remembered,” i.e., deliver or rescue (see Gen 8:1, “and God remembered Noah”). In this sense, a prayer “remember me” is a prayer for God to act upon his covenant promises.

[4:3]  ³⁶ tn Heb “take my life from me.”

[4:3]  ³⁷ tn Heb “better my death than my life.”

[4:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Does it burn so thoroughly to you?” or “Does it burn rightly to you?” See note on this expression in v. 4.

[4:9]  ³⁹ tn Heb “It thoroughly burns to me” or “It rightly burns to me.”

[4:9]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “unto death.” The phrase עַד־מָוֶת (’ad-mavet, “unto death”) is an idiomatic expression meaning “to the extreme” or simply “extremely [angry]” (HALOT 563 s.v. מָוֶת 1.c). The noun מָוֶת (“death”) is often used as an absolute superlative with a negative sense, similar to the English expression “bored to death” (IBHS 267-69 §14.5). For example, “his soul was vexed to death” (לָמוּת, lamut) means that he could no longer endure it (Judg 16:16), and “love is as strong as death” (כַמָּוֶת, kammavet) means love is irresistible or exceedingly strong (Song 8:6). Here the expression “I am angry unto death” (עַד־מָוֶת) means that Jonah could not be more angry. Unfortunately, this idiomatic expression has gone undetected by virtually every other major English version to date (KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NJB, JPS, NJPS). The only English version that comes close to representing the idiom correctly is BBE: “I have a right to be truly angry.”