Numbers 19:14

19:14 “‘This is the law: When a man dies ¹  in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.

Numbers 19:16

19:16 And whoever touches the body of someone killed with a sword in the open fields, ²  or the body of someone who died of natural causes, ³  or a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean seven days. ⁴ 

Numbers 23:19

23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie,

nor a human being, ⁵  that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

Or has he spoken, and will he not make it happen? ⁶ 

Numbers 31:35

31:35 and 32,000 young women who had never had sexual intercourse with a man. ⁷ 

[19:14]  ¹ tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”

[19:16]  ² tn The expression for “in the open field” is literally “upon the face of the field” (עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה, ’al pÿne hassadeh). This ruling is in contrast now to what was contacted in the tent.

[19:16]  ³ tn Heb “a dead body”; but in contrast to the person killed with a sword, this must refer to someone who died of natural causes.

[19:16]  ⁴ sn See Matt 23:27 and Acts 23:3 for application of this by the time of Jesus.

[23:19]  ³ tn Heb “son of man.”

[23:19]  ⁴ tn The verb is the Hiphil of קוּם (qum, “to cause to rise; to make stand”). The meaning here is more of the sense of fulfilling the promises made.

[31:35]  ⁴ sn Here again we encounter one of the difficulties of the book, the use of the large numbers. Only twelve thousand soldiers fought the Midianites, but they brought back this amount of plunder, including 32,000 girls. Until a solution for numbers in the book can be found, or the current translation confirmed, one must remain cautious in interpretation.