Numbers 21:2-3

21:2 So Israel made a vow ¹  to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed deliver ²  this people into our ³  hand, then we will utterly destroy ⁴  their cities.” 21:3 The Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, ⁵  and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of the place was called ⁶  Hormah.

Numbers 21:1

Victory at Hormah

21:1 ⁷ When the Canaanite king of Arad ⁸  who lived in the Negev ⁹  heard that Israel was approaching along the road to Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoner.

Numbers 15:18-23

15:18 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land to which I am bringing you ¹⁰  15:19 and you eat ¹¹  some of the food of the land, you must offer up a raised offering ¹²  to the Lord. 15:20 You must offer up a cake of the first of your finely ground flour ¹³  as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up. 15:21 You must give to the Lord some of the first of your finely ground flour as a raised offering in your future generations.

Rules for Unintentional Offenses

15:22 ¹⁴ “‘If you ¹⁵  sin unintentionally and do not observe all these commandments that the Lord has spoken to Moses – 15:23 all that the Lord has commanded you by the authority ¹⁶  of Moses, from the day that the Lord commanded Moses and continuing through your future generations –

[21:2]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text uses a cognate accusative with the verb: They vowed a vow. The Israelites were therefore determined with God’s help to defeat Arad.

[21:2]  ² tn The Hebrew text has the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of נָתַן (natan) to stress the point – if you will surely/indeed give.”

[21:2]  ³ tn Heb “my.”

[21:2]  ⁴ tn On the surface this does not sound like much of a vow. But the key is in the use of the verb for “utterly destroy” – חָרַם (kharam). Whatever was put to this “ban” or “devotion” belonged to God, either for his use, or for destruction. The oath was in fact saying that they would take nothing from this for themselves. It would simply be the removal of what was alien to the faith, or to God’s program.

[21:3]  ⁵ tc Smr, Greek, and Syriac add “into his hand.”

[21:3]  ⁶ tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject, and so here too is made passive. The name “Hormah” is etymologically connected to the verb “utterly destroy,” forming the popular etymology (or paronomasia, a phonetic wordplay capturing the significance of the event).

[21:1]  ⁷ sn This chapter has several events in it: the victory over Arad (vv. 1-3), the plague of serpents (vv. 4-9), the approach to Moab (vv. 10-20), and the victory over Sihon and Og (vv. 21-35). For information, see D. M. Gunn, “The ‘Battle Report’: Oral or Scribal Convention.” JBL 93 (1974): 513-18; and of the extensive literature on the archaeological site, see EAEHL 1:74-89.

[21:1]  ⁸ sn The name Arad probably refers to a place a number of miles away from Tel Arad in southern Israel. The name could also refer to the whole region (like Edom).

[21:1]  ⁹ tn Or “the south”; “Negev” has become a technical name for the southern desert region and is still in use in modern times.

[15:18]  ¹⁰ tn The relative clause is literally, “which I am causing you to enter there.” The final adverb is resumptive, and must be joined with the relative pronoun.

[15:19]  ¹¹ tn The verse has a temporal clause that actually continues or supplements the temporal clause of the preceding verse. It is made up of the temporal indicator, the infinitive construct with the preposition, and the suffixed subjective genitive: “and it shall be when you eat.” Here it is translated simply “and eat” since the temporal element was introduced in the last verse.

[15:19]  ¹² tn This is the תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah), the “raised offering” or “heave offering” (cf. KJV, ASV). It may simply be called a “contribution” (so NAB). The verb of the sentence is from the same root: “you shall lift up/raise up.” It was to be an offering separated from the rest and raised up to the Lord in the sight of all. It was designed to remind the Israelites that the produce and the land belonged to God.

[15:20]  ¹³ tn Or “the first of your dough.” The phrase is not very clear. N. H. Snaith thinks it means a batch of loaves from the kneading trough – the first batch of the baking (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 251).

[15:22]  ¹⁴ sn These regulations supplement what was already ruled on in the Levitical code for the purification and reparation offerings. See those rulings in Lev 4-7 for all the details. Some biblical scholars view the rules in Leviticus as more elaborate and therefore later. However, this probably represents a misunderstanding of the purpose of each collection.

[15:22]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the plural imperfect; the sin discussed here is a sin committed by the community, or the larger part of the community.

[15:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “hand.”