Numbers 20:13

20:13 These are the waters of Meribah, because the Israelites contended with the Lord, and his holiness was maintained ¹  among them.

Numbers 7:1

The Leader’s Offerings

7:1 ² When Moses had completed setting up the tabernacle, ³  he anointed it and consecrated it and all its furnishings, and he anointed and consecrated the altar and all its utensils.

Numbers 6:11

6:11 Then the priest will offer one for a purification offering ⁴  and the other ⁵  as a burnt offering, ⁶  and make atonement ⁷  for him, because of his transgression ⁸  in regard to the corpse. So he must reconsecrate ⁹  his head on that day.

Numbers 8:17

8:17 For all the firstborn males among the Israelites are mine, both humans and animals; when I destroyed ¹⁰  all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I set them apart for myself.

Numbers 16:37

16:37 “Tell ¹¹  Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to pick up ¹²  the censers out of the flame, for they are holy, and then scatter the coals of fire ¹³  at a distance.

Numbers 27:14

27:14 For ¹⁴  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ¹⁵  rebelled against my command ¹⁶  to show me as holy ¹⁷  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Numbers 3:13

3:13 because all the firstborn are mine. When I destroyed ¹⁸  all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I set apart for myself all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast. They belong to me. I am the Lord.” ¹⁹ 

Numbers 11:18

11:18 “And say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves ²⁰  for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing ²¹  of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat, ²²  for life ²³  was good for us in Egypt?” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.

Numbers 16:38

16:38 As for the censers of these men who sinned at the cost of their lives, ²⁴  they must be made ²⁵  into hammered sheets for covering the altar, because they presented them before the Lord and sanctified them. They will become a sign to the Israelites.”

Numbers 20:12

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ²⁶  to show me as holy ²⁷  before ²⁸  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ²⁹ 

[20:13]  ¹ tn The form is unusual – it is the Niphal preterite, and not the normal use of the Piel/Pual stem for “sanctify/sanctified.” The basic idea of “he was holy” has to be the main idea, but in this context it refers to the fact that through judging Moses God was making sure people ensured his holiness among them. The word also forms a wordplay on the name Kadesh.

[7:1]  ² sn This long and repetitious chapter has several parts to it: the introduction (vv. 1-3), the assigning of gifts (vv. 4-9), the time of presentation (vv. 10-11), and then the tribes (vv. 12-83), and then a summary (vv. 84-89).

[7:1]  ³ tn The construction of this line begins with the temporal indicator (traditionally translated “and it came to pass”) and then after the idiomatic “in the day of” (= “when”) uses the Piel infinitive construct from כָּלָה (kalah). The infinitive is governed by the subjective genitive, “Moses,” the formal subject of the clause. The object of the infinitive is the second infinitive, “to set up” (לְהָקִים, lÿhaqim). This infinitive, the Hiphil, serves as the direct object, answering the question of what it was that Moses completed. The entire clause is an adverbial clause of time.

[6:11]  ³ tn The traditional translation of חַטָּאת (khatta’t) is “sin offering,” but it is more precise to render it “purification offering” (as with the other names of sacrifices) to show the outcome, not the cause of the offering (see Lev 4). Besides, this offering was made for ritual defilements (for which no confession was required) as well as certain sins (for which a confession of sin was required). This offering restored the person to the ritual state of purity by purifying the area into which he would be going.

[6:11]  ⁴ tn The repetition of “the one…and the one” forms the distributive sense of “the one…and the other.”

[6:11]  ⁵ tn The burnt offering (Lev 1) reflects the essence of atonement: By this sacrifice the worshiper was completely surrendering to God, and God was completely accepting the worshiper.

[6:11]  ⁶ tn The verb וְכִפֶּר (vÿkhipper) is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The meaning of the verb is “to expiate, pacify, atone.” It refers to the complete removal of the barrier of fellowship between the person and God, and the total acceptance of that person into his presence. The idea of “to cover,” often linked to this meaning, is derived from a homonym, and not from this word and its usage.

[6:11]  ⁷ tn The verb “to sin” has a wide range of meanings, beginning with the idea of “missing the way or the goal.” In view of the nature of this case – the prescribed ritual without confession – the idea is more that he failed to keep the vow’s stipulations in this strange circumstance than that he committed intentional sin.

[6:11]  ⁸ tn The verb simply means “to consecrate,” but because it refers to a vow that was interrupted, it must here mean to “reconsecrate.”

[8:17]  ⁴ tn The idiomatic “on the day of” precedes the infinitive construct of נָכָה (nakhah) to form the temporal clause: “in the day of my striking…” becomes “when I struck.”

[16:37]  ⁵ tn Heb “say to.”

[16:37]  ⁶ tn The verb is the jussive with a vav (ו) coming after the imperative; it may be subordinated to form a purpose clause (“that he may pick up”) or the object of the imperative.

[16:37]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text just has “fire,” but it would be hard to conceive of this action apart from the idea of coals of fire.

[27:14]  ⁶ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

[27:14]  ⁷ tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

[27:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “mouth.”

[27:14]  ⁹ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[3:13]  ⁷ tn The form הַכֹּתִי (hakkoti) is the Hiphil infinitive construct of the verb נָכָה (nakhah, “to strike, smite, attack”). Here, after the idiomatic “in the day of,” the form functions in an adverbial clause of time – “when I destroyed.”

[3:13]  ⁸ sn In the Exodus event of the Passover night the principle of substitution was presented. The firstborn child was redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and so belonged to God, but then God chose the Levites to serve in the place of the firstborn. The ritual of consecrating the firstborn son to the Lord was nevertheless carried out, even with Jesus, the firstborn son of Mary (Luke 2:22-23).

[11:18]  ⁸ tn The Hitpael is used to stress that they are to prepare for a holy appearance. The day was going to be special and so required their being set apart for it. But it is a holy day in the sense of the judgment that was to follow.

[11:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the ears.”

[11:18]  ¹⁰ tn Possibly this could be given an optative translation, to reflect the earlier one: “O that someone would give….” But the verb is not the same; here it is the Hiphil of the verb “to eat” – “who will make us eat” (i.e., provide meat for us to eat).

[11:18]  ¹¹ tn The word “life” is not in the text. The expression is simply “it was for us,” or “we had good,” meaning “we had it good,” or “life was good.”

[16:38]  ⁹ tn The expression is “in/by/against their life.” That they sinned against their life means that they brought ruin to themselves.

[16:38]  ¹⁰ tn The form is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. But there is no expressed subject for “and they shall make them,” and so it may be treated as a passive (“they shall [must] be made”).

[20:12]  ¹⁰ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ¹¹ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[20:12]  ¹² tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ¹³ tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.