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 8:19

8:19 I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites, to do the work for the Israelites in the tent of meeting, and to make atonement for the Israelites, so there will be no plague among the Israelites when the Israelites come near the sanctuary.” ² 

Numbers 11:8

11:8 And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it with mills or pounded it in mortars; they baked it in pans and made cakes of it. It tasted like fresh olive oil. ³ 

Numbers 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ⁴  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ⁵  to investigate is a land that devours ⁶  its inhabitants. ⁷  All the people we saw there ⁸  are of great stature.

Numbers 32:29

32:29 Moses said to them: “If the Gadites and the Reubenites cross the Jordan with you, each one equipped for battle in the Lord’s presence, and you conquer the land, ⁹  then you must allot them the territory of Gilead as their possession.

Numbers 36:3

36:3 Now if they should be married to one of the men ¹⁰  from another Israelite tribe, their inheritance would be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. ¹¹  As a result, it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance.

[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.

[8:19]  ² sn The firstborn were those that were essentially redeemed from death in Egypt when the blood was put on the doors. So in the very real sense they belonged to God (Exod 13:2,12). The firstborn was one who stood in special relationship to the father, being the successive offspring. Here, the Levites would stand in for the firstborn in that special role and special relationship. God also made it clear that the nation of Israel was his firstborn son (Exod 4:22-23), and so they stood in that relationship before all the nations. The tribe of Reuben was to have been the firstborn tribe, but in view of the presumptuous attempt to take over the leadership through pagan methods (Gen 35:22; 49:3-4), was passed over. The tribes of Levi and Simeon were also put down for their ancestors’ activities, but sanctuary service was still given to Levi.

[11:8]  ³ tn Heb “And its taste was like the taste of fresh olive oil.”

[13:32]  ⁴ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.

[13:32]  ⁶ tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.

[13:32]  ⁷ sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.

[13:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[32:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “and the land is subdued before you.”

[36:3]  ⁶ tn “Men” is understood; it says “to one from the sons of the tribes of the Israelites for a wife,” or if he has her for a wife.

[36:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “which they will be to them,” meaning, to those who have them, i.e., the marriages.