Numbers 5:18

5:18 Then the priest will have the woman stand before the Lord, uncover the woman’s head, and put the grain offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of suspicion. The priest will hold in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse. ¹ 

Numbers 10:10

10:10 “Also in the time when you rejoice, such as ²  on your appointed festivals or ³  at the beginnings of your months, you must blow with your trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, so that they may ⁴  become ⁵  a memorial for you before your God: I am the Lord your God.”

Numbers 20:28

20:28 And Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar. So Aaron died there on the top of the mountain. And Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

Numbers 25:4

God’s Punishment

25:4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders ⁶  of the people, and hang them up ⁷  before the Lord in broad daylight, ⁸  so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”

[5:18]  ¹ tn The expression has been challenged. The first part, “bitter water,” has been thought to mean “water of contention” (so NEB), but this is not convincing. It has some support in the versions which read “contention” and “testing,” no doubt trying to fit the passage better. N. H. Snaith (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 129) suggests from an Arabic word that it was designed to cause an abortion – but that would raise an entirely different question, one of who the father of a child was. And that has not been introduced here. The water was “bitter” in view of the consequences it held for her if she was proven to be guilty. That is then enforced by the wordplay with the last word, the Piel participle הַמְאָרֲרִים (ham’ararim). The bitter water, if it convicted her, would pronounce a curse on her. So she was literally holding her life in her hands.

[10:10]  ² tn The conjunction may be taken as explicative or epexegetical, and so rendered “namely; even; that is,” or it may be taken as emphatic conjunction, and translated “especially.”

[10:10]  ³ tn The vav (ו) is taken here in its alternative use and translated “or.”

[10:10]  ⁴ tn The form is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. After the instruction imperfects, this form could be given the same nuance, or more likely, subordinated as a purpose or result clause.

[10:10]  ⁵ tn The verb “to be” (הָיָה, hayah) has the meaning “to become” when followed by the preposition lamed (ל).

[25:4]  ³ sn The meaning must be the leaders behind the apostasy, for they would now be arrested. They were responsible for the tribes’ conformity to the Law, but here they had not only failed in their duty, but had participated. The leaders were executed; the rest of the guilty died by the plague.

[25:4]  ⁴ sn The leaders who were guilty were commanded by God to be publicly exposed by hanging, probably a reference to impaling, but possibly some other form of harsh punishment. The point was that the swaying of their executed bodies would be a startling warning for any who so blatantly set the Law aside and indulged in apostasy through pagan sexual orgies.

[25:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the sun.” This means in broad daylight.