Numbers 4:7

4:7 “On the table of the presence ¹  they must spread a blue ²  cloth, and put on it the dishes, the pans, the bowls, and the pitchers for pouring, and the Bread of the Presence must be on it continually.

Numbers 5:16

5:16 “‘Then the priest will bring her near and have her stand ³  before the Lord.

Numbers 5:21

5:21 Then the priest will put the woman under the oath of the curse ⁴  and will say ⁵  to the her, “The Lord make you an attested curse ⁶  among your people, ⁷  if the Lord makes ⁸  your thigh fall away ⁹  and your abdomen swell; ¹⁰ 

Numbers 9:2

9:2 “The Israelites are to observe ¹¹  the Passover ¹²  at its appointed time. ¹³ 

Numbers 10:7

10:7 But when you assemble the community, ¹⁴  you must blow, but you must not sound an alarm. ¹⁵ 

Numbers 16:30

16:30 But if the Lord does something entirely new, ¹⁶  and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up ¹⁷  along with all that they have, and they ¹⁸  go down alive to the grave, ¹⁹  then you will know that these men have despised the Lord!”

Numbers 20:8

20:8 “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak ²⁰  to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth ²¹  its water, and you will bring water out of the rock for them, and so you will give the community and their beasts water to drink.”

Numbers 21:34

21:34 And the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand. You will do to him what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.

Numbers 26:59

26:59 Now the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, daughter of Levi, who was born ²²  to Levi in Egypt. And to Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and Miriam their sister.

Numbers 27:5

27:5 So Moses brought their case before the Lord.

Numbers 33:52

33:52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, ²³  and demolish their high places.

Numbers 35:5

35:5 “You must measure ²⁴  from outside the wall of the town on the east 1,000 yards, ²⁵  and on the south side 1,000 yards, and on the west side 1,000 yards, and on the north side 1,000 yards, with the town in the middle. ²⁶  This territory must belong to them as grazing land for the towns.

[4:7]  ¹ sn The Hebrew actually has the “table of faces,” and this has been traditionally rendered “table of shewbread.”

[4:7]  ² tn The Greek has “violet” instead of blue. This is also the case in vv. 8, 10, and 14.

[5:16]  ³ tn The verb is the Hiphil of the word “to stand.” It could be rendered “station her,” but that sounds too unnatural. This is a meeting between an accused person and the Judge of the whole earth.

[5:21]  ⁵ sn For information on such curses, see M. R. Lehmann, “Biblical Oaths,” ZAW 81 (1969): 74-92; A. C. Thiselton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings,” JTS 25 (1974): 283-99; and F. C. Fensham, “Malediction and Benediction in Ancient Vassal Treaties and the Old Testament,” ZAW 74 (1962): 1-9.

[5:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “the priest will say.”

[5:21]  ⁷ tn This interpretation takes the two nouns as a hendiadys. The literal wording is “the Lord make you a curse and an oath among the people.” In what sense would she be an oath? The point of the whole passage is that the priest is making her take an oath to see if she has been sinful and will be cursed.

[5:21]  ⁸ sn The outcome of this would be that she would be quoted by people in such forms of expression as an oath or a curse (see Jer 29:22).

[5:21]  ⁹ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition to form an adverbial clause: “in the giving of the Lord…,” meaning, “if and when the Lord makes such and such to happen.”

[5:21]  ¹⁰ tn TEV takes the expression “your thigh” as a euphemism for the genitals: “cause your genital organs to shrink.”

[5:21]  ¹¹ sn Most commentators take the expressions to be euphemisms of miscarriage or stillbirth, meaning that there would be no fruit from an illegitimate union. The idea of the abdomen swelling has been reinterpreted by NEB to mean “fall away.” If this interpretation stands, then the idea is that the woman has become pregnant, and that has aroused the suspicion of the husband for some reason. R. K. Harrison (Numbers [WEC], 111-13) discusses a variety of other explanations for diseases and conditions that might be described by these terms. He translates it with “miscarriage,” but leaves open what the description might actually be. Cf. NRSV “makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.”

[9:2]  ⁷ tn The verb is simply “to do; to make” (עָשָׂה [’asah] in the jussive). It must have the idea here of “to perform; to keep; to observe” the ritual of the Passover.

[9:2]  ⁸ sn For a detailed study note on the Passover, see the discussion with the original institution in Exod 12. The word פֶּסַח (pesakh) – here in pause and with the article – has become the technical name for the spring festival of Israel. In Exod 12 the name is explained by the use of the verb “to pass over” (עָבַר, ’avar), indicating that the angel of death would pass over the house with the blood applied. Many scholarly attempts have been made to supply the etymology of the word, but none has been compelling enough to be accepted by a large number of biblical scholars. For general literature on the Passover, see J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover, as well as the Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias.

[9:2]  ⁹ tc The Greek text uses a plural here but the singular in vv. 7 and 13; the Smr uses the plural in all three places.

[10:7]  ⁹ tn There is no expressed subject in the initial temporal clause. It simply says, “and in the assembling the assembly.” But since the next verb is the second person of the verb, that may be taken as the intended subject here.

[10:7]  ¹⁰ sn The signal for moving camp was apparently different in tone and may have been sharper notes or a different sequence. It was in some way distinguishable.

[16:30]  ¹¹ tn The verb בָּרָא (bara’) is normally translated “create” in the Bible. More specifically it means to fashion or make or do something new and fresh. Here the verb is joined with its cognate accusative to underscore that this will be so different everyone will know it is of God.

[16:30]  ¹² tn The figures are personifications. But they vividly describe the catastrophe to follow – which was very much like a mouth swallowing them.

[16:30]  ¹³ tn The word is “life” or “lifetime”; it certainly means their lives – they themselves. But the presence of this word suggest more. It is an accusative specifying the state of the subject – they will go down alive to Sheol.

[16:30]  ¹⁴ tn The word “Sheol” in the Bible can be used four different ways: the grave, the realm of the departed [wicked] spirits or Hell, death in general, or a place of extreme danger (one that will lead to the grave if God does not intervene). The usage here is certainly the first, and very likely the second as well. A translation of “pit” would not be inappropriate. Since they will go down there alive, it is likely that they will sense the deprivation and the separation from the land above. See H. W. Robinson, Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament; N. J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Netherworld in the Old Testament (BibOr 21), 21-23; and A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic, especially ch. 3.

[20:8]  ¹³ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, following the two imperatives in the verse. Here is the focus of the instruction for Moses.

[20:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “give.” The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, as are the next two in the verse. These are not now equal to the imperatives, but imperfects, showing the results of speaking to the rock: “speak…and it will…and so you will….”

[26:59]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “who she bore him to Levi.” The verb has no expressed subject. Either one could be supplied, such as “her mother,” or it could be treated as a passive.

[33:52]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text repeats the verb “you will destroy.”

[35:5]  ¹⁹ tn The verb is the Qal perfect of מָדַד (madad, “to measure”). With its vav (ו) consecutive it carries the same instructional force as the imperfect.

[35:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “two thousand cubits” (also three more times in this verse). This would be a distance of 3,000 feet or 1,000 yards (1,350 meters).

[35:5]  ²¹ sn The precise nature of the layout described here is not altogether clear. V. 4 speaks of the distance from the wall as being 500 yards; v. 5, however, describes measurements of 1,000 yards. Various proposals have been made in order to harmonize vv. 4 and 5. P. J. Budd, Numbers (WBC), 376, makes the following suggestion: “It may be best to assume that the cubits of the Levitical pasture lands are cubit frontages of land – in other words on each side of the city there was a block of land with a frontage of two thousand cubits (v 5), and a depth of 1000 cubits (v 4).”