Numbers 13:31--14:3

13:31 But the men ¹  who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!” 13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ²  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ³  to investigate is a land that devours ⁴  its inhabitants. ⁵  All the people we saw there ⁶  are of great stature. 13:33 We even saw the Nephilim ⁷  there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves ⁸  and to them.” ⁹ 

The Israelites Respond in Unbelief

14:1 ¹⁰ Then all the community raised a loud cry, ¹¹  and the people wept ¹²  that night. 14:2 And all the Israelites murmured ¹³  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ¹⁴  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ¹⁵  in this wilderness! 14:3 Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”

Numbers 32:9

32:9 When ¹⁶  they went up to the Eshcol Valley and saw the land, they frustrated the intent of the Israelites so that they did not enter ¹⁷  the land that the Lord had given ¹⁸  them.

Numbers 32:1

The Petition of the Reubenites and Gadites

32:1 ¹⁹ Now the Reubenites and the Gadites possessed a very large number of cattle. When they saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were ideal for cattle, ²⁰ 

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²¹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

[13:31]  ¹ tn The vav (ו) disjunctive on the noun at the beginning of the clause forms a strong adversative clause here.

[13:32]  ² tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ³ tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.

[13:32]  ⁴ tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.

[13:32]  ⁵ sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.

[13:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[13:33]  ⁷ tc The Greek version uses gigantes (“giants”) to translate “the Nephilim,” but it does not retain the clause “the sons of Anak are from the Nephilim.”

[13:33]  ⁸ tn Heb “in our eyes.”

[13:33]  ⁹ tn Heb “in their eyes.”

[14:1]  ¹⁰ sn This chapter forms part of the story already begun. There are three major sections here: dissatisfaction with the reports (vv. 1-10), the threat of divine punishment (vv. 11-38), and the defeat of the Israelites (vv. 39-45). See K. D. Sakenfeld, “The Problem of Divine Forgiveness in Num 14,” CBQ 37 (1975): 317-30; also J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word רֹאשׁ as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 (1969): 1-10.

[14:1]  ¹¹ tn The two verbs “lifted up their voice and cried” form a hendiadys; the idiom of raising the voice means that they cried aloud.

[14:1]  ¹² tn There are a number of things that the verb “to weep” or “wail” can connote. It could reflect joy, grief, lamentation, or repentance, but here it reflects fear, hopelessness, or vexation at the thought of coming all this way and being defeated by the Canaanite armies. See Judg 20:23, 26.

[14:2]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew verb “to murmur” is לוּן (lun). It is a strong word, signifying far more than complaining or grumbling, as some of the modern translations have it. The word is most often connected to the wilderness experience. It is paralleled in the literature with the word “to rebel.” The murmuring is like a parliamentary vote of no confidence, for they no longer trusted their leaders and wished to choose a new leader and return. This “return to Egypt” becomes a symbol of their lack of faith in the Lord.

[14:2]  ¹⁴ tn The optative is expressed by לוּ (lu) and then the verb, here the perfect tense מַתְנוּ (matnu) – “O that we had died….” Had they wanted to die in Egypt they should not have cried out to the Lord to deliver them from bondage. Here the people became consumed with the fear and worry of what lay ahead, and in their panic they revealed a lack of trust in God.

[14:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “died.”

[32:9]  ¹⁶ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the parallel yet chronologically later verb in the next clause.

[32:9]  ¹⁷ tn The infinitive construct here with lamed (ל) is functioning as a result clause.

[32:9]  ¹⁸ tn The Lord had not given it yet, but was going to give it. Hence, the perfect should be classified as a perfect of resolve.

[32:1]  ¹⁹ sn While the tribes are on the other side of Jordan, the matter of which tribes would settle there has to be discussed. This chapter begins the settlement of Israel into the tribal territories, something to be continued in Joshua. The chapter has the petitions (vv. 1-5), the response by Moses (vv. 6-15), the proposal (vv. 16-27), and the conclusion of the matter (vv. 28-42). For literature on this subject, both critical and conservative, see S. E. Loewenstein, “The Relation of the Settlement of Gad and Reuben in Numbers 32:1-38, Its Background and Its Composition,” Tarbiz 42 (1972): 12-26; J. Mauchline, “Gilead and Gilgal, Some Reflections on the Israelite Occupation of Palestine,” VT 6 (1956): 19-33; and A. Bergmann, “The Israelite Tribe of Half-Manasseh,” JPOS 16 (1936): 224-54.

[32:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the place was a place of/for cattle.”

[1:1]  ²¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.