Numbers 6:7

6:7 He must not defile himself even ¹  for his father or his mother or his brother or his sister if they die, ²  because the separation ³  for ⁴  his God is on his head.

Numbers 23:21

23:21 He ⁵  has not looked on iniquity in Jacob, ⁶ 

nor has he seen trouble ⁷  in Israel.

The Lord their God is with them;

his acclamation ⁸  as king is among them.

[6:7]  ¹ tn The vav (ו) conjunction at the beginning of the clause specifies the cases of corpses that are to be avoided, no matter how painful it might be.

[6:7]  ² tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition and the suffixed subjective genitive – “in the dying of them” – to form the adverbial clause of time.

[6:7]  ³ tn The word “separation” here is metonymy of adjunct – what is on his head is long hair that goes with the vow.

[6:7]  ⁴ tn The genitive could perhaps be interpreted as possession, i.e., “the vow of his God,” but it seems more likely that an objective genitive would be more to the point.

[23:21]  ⁵ tn These could be understood as impersonal and so rendered “no one has discovered.”

[23:21]  ⁶ sn The line could mean that God has regarded Israel as the ideal congregation without any blemish or flaw. But it could also mean that God has not looked on their iniquity, meaning, held it against them.

[23:21]  ⁷ tn The word means “wrong, misery, trouble.” It can mean the idea of “disaster” as well, for that too is trouble. Here it is parallel to “iniquity” and so has the connotation of something that would give God reason to curse them.

[23:21]  ⁸ tn The people are blessed because God is their king. In fact, the shout of acclamation is among them – they are proclaiming the Lord God as their king. The word is used normally for the sound of the trumpet, but also of battle shouts, and then here acclamation. This would represent their conviction that Yahweh is king. On the usage of this Hebrew word see further BDB 929-30 s.v. תְּרוּעָה; HALOT 1790-91 s.v.