Numbers 14:25

14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ¹  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Numbers 14:45

14:45 So the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country swooped ²  down and attacked them ³  as far as Hormah. ⁴ 

Numbers 20:15

20:15 how our ancestors went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time, ⁵  and the Egyptians treated us and our ancestors badly. ⁶ 

Numbers 21:15

21:15 and the slope of the valleys ⁷ 

that extends to the dwelling of Ar, ⁸ 

and falls off at the border of Moab.”

Numbers 25:1

Israel’s Sin with the Moabite Women

25:1 ⁹ When ¹⁰  Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality ¹¹  with the daughters of Moab.

Numbers 32:6

Moses’ Response

32:6 Moses said to the Gadites and the Reubenites, “Must your brothers go to war while you ¹²  remain here?

Numbers 32:40

32:40 So Moses gave Gilead to Machir, son of Manasseh, and he lived there. ¹³ 

Numbers 33:40

33:40 The king of Arad, the Canaanite king who lived in the south of the land of Canaan, heard about the approach of the Israelites.

Numbers 33:53

33:53 You must dispossess the inhabitants of the land and live in it, for I have given you the land to possess it.

Numbers 35:3

35:3 Thus they will have towns in which to live, and their grazing lands will be for their cattle, for their possessions, and for all their animals.

[14:25]  ¹ sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south – unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.

[14:45]  ² tn Heb “came down.”

[14:45]  ³ tn The verb used here means “crush by beating,” or “pounded” them. The Greek text used “cut them in pieces.”

[14:45]  ⁴ tn The name “Hormah” means “destruction”; it is from the word that means “ban, devote” for either destruction or temple use.

[20:15]  ³ tn Heb “many days.”

[20:15]  ⁴ tn The verb רָעַע (ra’a’) means “to act or do evil.” Evil here is in the sense of causing pain or trouble. So the causative stem in our passage means “to treat wickedly.”

[21:15]  ⁴ tc There are many variations in this text, but the MT reading of something like “the descent of the torrents/valleys” is preferable, since it is describing the topography.

[21:15]  ⁵ sn The place is unknown; it is apparently an important city in the region.

[25:1]  ⁵ sn Chapter 25 tells of Israel’s sins on the steppes of Moab, and God’s punishment. In the overall plan of the book, here we have another possible threat to God’s program, although here it comes from within the camp (Balaam was the threat from without). If the Moabites could not defeat them one way, they would try another. The chapter has three parts: fornication (vv. 1-3), God’s punishment (vv. 4-9), and aftermath (vv. 10-18). See further G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, 105-21; and S. C. Reif, “What Enraged Phinehas? A Study of Numbers 25:8,” JBL 90 (1971): 200-206.

[25:1]  ⁶ tn This first preterite is subordinated to the next as a temporal clause; it is not giving a parallel action, but the setting for the event.

[25:1]  ⁷ sn The account apparently means that the men were having sex with the Moabite women. Why the men submitted to such a temptation at this point is hard to say. It may be that as military heroes the men took liberties with the women of occupied territories.

[32:6]  ⁶ tn The vav (ו) is a vav disjunctive prefixed to the pronoun; it fits best here as a circumstantial clause, “while you stay here.”

[32:40]  ⁷ tn Heb “in it.”