Numbers 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ²  to investigate is a land that devours ³  its inhabitants. ⁴  All the people we saw there ⁵  are of great stature.

Numbers 24:17

24:17 ‘I see him, but not now;

I behold him, but not close at hand. ⁶ 

A star ⁷  will march forth ⁸  out of Jacob,

and a scepter ⁹  will rise out of Israel.

He will crush the skulls ¹⁰  of Moab,

and the heads ¹¹  of all the sons of Sheth. ¹² 

[13:32]  ¹ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[24:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “near.”

[24:17]  ⁷ sn This is a figure for a king (see also Isa 14:12) not only in the Bible but in the ancient Near Eastern literature as a whole. The immediate reference of the prophecy seems to be to David, but the eschatological theme goes beyond him. There is to be a connection made between this passage and the sighting of a star in its ascendancy by the magi, who then traveled to Bethlehem to see the one born King of the Jews (Matt 2:2). The expression “son of a star” (Aram Bar Kochba) became a title for a later claimant to kingship, but he was doomed by the Romans in a.d. 135.

[24:17]  ⁸ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it is equal to the imperfect expressing the future. The verb דָּרַךְ (darakh), related to the noun “way, road,” seems to mean something like tread on, walk, march.”

[24:17]  ⁹ sn The “scepter” is metonymical for a king who will rise to power. NEB strangely rendered this as “comet” to make a parallel with “star.”

[24:17]  ¹⁰ tn The word is literally “corners,” but may refer to the corners of the head, and so “skull.”

[24:17]  ¹¹ tc The MT reads “shatter, devastate.” Smr reads קֹדְקֹד (qodqod, “head; crown; pate”). Smr follows Jer 48:45 which appears to reflect Num 24:17.

[24:17]  ¹² sn The prophecy begins to be fulfilled when David defeated Moab and Edom and established an empire including them. But the Messianic promise extends far beyond that to the end of the age and the inclusion of these defeated people in the program of the coming King.