Numbers 3:13

3:13 because all the firstborn are mine. When I destroyed ¹  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.” ² 

Numbers 11:18

11:18 “And say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves ³  for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing ⁴  of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat, ⁵  for life ⁶  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, ⁷  they must be made ⁸  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 ⁹  to show me as holy ¹⁰  before ¹¹  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ¹² 

[3:13]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “in the ears.”

[11:18]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁵ tn The expression is “in/by/against their life.” That they sinned against their life means that they brought ruin to themselves.

[16:38]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ¹⁰ 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.