Numbers 14:28-29

14:28 Say to them, ‘As I live, ¹  says ²  the Lord, I will surely do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing. ³  14:29 Your dead bodies ⁴  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

Numbers 11:15

11:15 But if you are going to deal ⁵  with me like this, then kill me immediately. ⁶  If I have found favor in your sight then do not let me see my trouble.” ⁷ 

Numbers 11:1

The Israelites Complain

11:1 ⁸ When the people complained, ⁹  it displeased ¹⁰  the Lord. When the Lord heard ¹¹  it, his anger burned, ¹²  and so ¹³  the fire of the Lord ¹⁴  burned among them and consumed some of the outer parts of the camp.

Numbers 19:4

19:4 Eleazar the priest is to take ¹⁵  some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of the blood seven times ¹⁶  directly in front of the tent of meeting.

Job 3:11

Job Wishes He Had Died at Birth ¹⁷ 

3:11 “Why did I not ¹⁸  die ¹⁹  at birth, ²⁰ 

and why did I not expire

as ²¹  I came out of the womb?

Job 7:15-16

7:15 so that I ²²  would prefer ²³  strangling, ²⁴ 

and ²⁵  death ²⁶  more ²⁷  than life. ²⁸ 

7:16 I loathe ²⁹  it; ³⁰  I do not want to live forever;

leave me alone, ³¹  for my days are a vapor! ³² 

Jonah 4:3

4:3 So now, Lord, kill me instead, ³³  because I would rather die than live!” ³⁴ 

Jonah 4:8

4:8 When the sun began to shine, God sent ³⁵  a hot ³⁶  east wind. So the sun beat down ³⁷  on Jonah’s head, and he grew faint. So he despaired of life, ³⁸  and said, “I would rather die than live!” ³⁹ 

[14:28]  ¹ sn Here again is the oath that God swore in his wrath, an oath he swore by himself, that they would not enter the land. “As the Lord lives,” or “by the life of the Lord,” are ways to render it.

[14:28]  ² tn The word נְאֻם (nÿ’um) is an “oracle.” It is followed by the subjective genitive: “the oracle of the Lord” is equal to saying “the Lord says.”

[14:28]  ³ tn Heb “in my ears.”

[14:29]  ⁴ tn Or “your corpses” (also in vv. 32, 33).

[11:15]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb as a temporal clause.

[11:1]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it functions here as the equivalent of the imperfect of instruction.

[19:4]  ¹⁶ sn Seven is a number with religious significance; it is often required in sacrificial ritual for atonement or for purification.

[3:11]  ¹⁷ sn Job follows his initial cry with a series of rhetorical questions. His argument runs along these lines: since he was born (v. 10), the next chance he had of escaping this life of misery would have been to be still born (vv. 11-12, 16). In vv. 13-19 Job considers death as falling into a peaceful sleep in a place where there is no trouble. The high frequency of rhetorical questions in series is a characteristic of the Book of Job that sets it off from all other portions of the OT. The effect is primarily dramatic, creating a tension that requires resolution. See W. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 340-41.

[3:11]  ¹⁸ tn The negative only occurs with the first clause, but it extends its influence to the parallel second clause (GKC 483 §152.z).

[3:11]  ¹⁹ tn The two verbs in this verse are both prefix conjugations; they are clearly referring to the past and should be classified as preterites. E. Dhorme (Job, 32) notes that the verb “I came out” is in the perfect to mark its priority in time in relation to the other verbs.

[3:11]  ²⁰ tn The translation “at birth” is very smooth, but catches the meaning and avoids the tautology in the verse. The line literally reads “from the womb.” The second half of the verse has the verb “I came out/forth” which does double duty for both parallel lines. The second half uses “belly” for the womb.

[3:11]  ²¹ tn The two halves of the verse use the prepositional phrases (“from the womb” and “from the belly I went out”) in the temporal sense of “on emerging from the womb.”

[7:15]  ²² tn The word נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is often translated “soul.” But since Hebrew thought does not make such a distinction between body and soul, it is usually better to translate it with “person.” When a suffix is added to the word, then that pronoun would serve as the better translation, as here with “my soul” = “I” (meaning with every fiber of my being).

[7:15]  ²³ tn The verb בָּחַר (bakhar, “choose”) followed by the preposition בּ (bet) can have the sense of “prefer.”

[7:15]  ²⁴ tn The meaning of the term מַחֲנָק (makhanaq, “strangling”), a hapax legomenon, is clear enough; the verb חָנַק (khanaq) in the Piel means “to strangle” (Nah 2:13), and in the Niphal “to strangle oneself” (2 Sam 17:23). This word has tempted some commentators to take נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) in a very restricted sense of “throat.”

[7:15]  ²⁵ tn The conjunction “and” is supplied in the translation. “Death” could also be taken in apposition to “strangling,” providing the outcome of the strangling.

[7:15]  ²⁶ tn This is one of the few words recognizable in the LXX: “You will separate life from my spirit, and yet keep my bones from death.”

[7:15]  ²⁷ tn The comparative min (מִן) after the verb “choose” will here have the idea of preferring something before another (see GKC 429-30 §133.b).

[7:15]  ²⁸ tn The word מֵעַצְמוֹתָי (me’atsmotay) means “more than my bones” (= life or being). The line is poetic; “bones” is often used in scripture metonymically for the whole living person, so there is no need here for conjectural emendation. Nevertheless, there have been several suggestions made. The simplest and most appealing for those who desire a change is the repointing to מֵעַצְּבוֹתָי (me’atsÿvotay, “my sufferings,” adopted by NAB, JB, Moffatt, Driver-Gray, E. Dhorme, H. H. Rowley, and others). Driver obtains this idea by positing a new word based on Arabic without changing the letters; it means “great” – but he has to supply the word “sufferings.”

[7:16]  ²⁹ 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]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ tn Heb “cease from me.” This construction means essentially “leave me in peace.”

[7:16]  ³² 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.

[4:3]  ³³ tn Heb “take my life from me.”

[4:3]  ³⁴ tn Heb “better my death than my life.”

[4:8]  ³⁵ tn Or “appointed.” See preceding note on v. 7.

[4:8]  ³⁶ tc The MT adjective חֲרִישִׁית (kharishit, “autumnal”) is a hapax legomenon with an unclear meaning (BDB 362 s.v. חֲרִישִׁי); therefore, the BHS editors propose a conjectural emendation to the adjective חֲרִיפִית (kharifit, “autumnal”) from the noun חֹרֶף (khoref, “autumn”; see BDB 358 s.v. חרֶף). However, this emendation would also create a hapax legomenon and it would be no more clear than relating the MT’s חֲרִישִׁית to I חָרַשׁ (kharash, “to plough” [in autumn harvest]).

[4:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “attacked” or “smote.”

[4:8]  ³⁸ tn Heb “he asked his soul to die.”

[4:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “better my death than my life.”