Numbers 9:16
Context9:16 This is the way it used to be continually: The cloud would cover it by day, 1 and there was a fiery appearance by night.
Numbers 26:61
Context26:61 But Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire 2 before the Lord.
Numbers 11:3
Context11:3 So he called the name of that place Taberah 3 because there the fire of the Lord burned among them.
Numbers 9:15
Context9:15 4 On 5 the day that the tabernacle was set up, 6 the cloud 7 covered the tabernacle – the tent of the testimony 8 – and from evening until morning there was 9 a fiery appearance 10 over the tabernacle.
Numbers 11:1
Context11:1 11 When the people complained, 12 it displeased 13 the Lord. When the Lord heard 14 it, his anger burned, 15 and so 16 the fire of the Lord 17 burned among them and consumed some of the outer parts of the camp.
Numbers 16:18
Context16:18 So everyone took his censer, put fire in it, and set incense on it, and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting, with Moses and Aaron.
Numbers 21:28
Context21:28 For fire went out from Heshbon,
a flame from the city of Sihon.
It has consumed Ar of Moab
and the lords 18 of the high places of Arnon.
Numbers 3:4
Context3:4 Nadab and Abihu died 19 before the Lord 20 when they offered 21 strange 22 fire 23 before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. 24 So Eleazar and Ithamar ministered as priests 25 in the presence of 26 Aaron their father.
Numbers 14:14
Context14:14 then they will tell it to the inhabitants 27 of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among this people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, 28 that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night.
Numbers 16:7
Context16:7 put fire in them, and set incense on them before the Lord tomorrow, and the man whom the Lord chooses will be holy. You take too much upon yourselves, you sons of Levi!”
Numbers 16:46
Context16:46 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put burning coals from the altar in it, place incense on it, and go quickly into the assembly and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord – the plague has begun!”


[9:16] 1 tc The MT lacks the words “by day,” but a number of ancient versions have this reading (e.g., Greek, Syriac, Tg. Ps.-J., Latin Vulgate).
[26:61] 2 tn The expression אֵשׁ זָרָה (’esh zarah, “strange fire”) seems imprecise and has been interpreted numerous ways (see the helpful summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC 4], 132-33). The infraction may have involved any of the following or a combination thereof: (1) using coals from some place other than the burnt offering altar (i.e., “unauthorized coals” according to J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:598; cf. Lev 16:12 and cf. “unauthorized person” [אִישׁ זָר, ’ish zar] in Num 16:40 [17:5 HT], NASB “layman”), (2) using the wrong kind of incense (cf. the Exod 30:9 regulation against “strange incense” [קְטֹרֶת זָרָה, qÿtoret zarah] on the incense altar and the possible connection to Exod 30:34-38), (3) performing an incense offering at an unprescribed time (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 59), or (4) entering the Holy of Holies at an inappropriate time (Lev 16:1-2).
[11:3] 3 tn The name תַּבְעֵרָה (tav’erah) is given to the spot as a commemorative of the wilderness experience. It is explained by the formula using the same verbal root, “to burn.” Such naming narratives are found dozens of times in the OT, and most frequently in the Pentateuch. The explanation is seldom an exact etymology, and so in the literature is called a popular etymology. It is best to explain the connection as a figure of speech, a paronomasia, which is a phonetic wordplay that may or may not be etymologically connected. Usually the name is connected to the explanation by a play on the verbal root – here the preterite explaining the noun. The significance of commemorating the place by such a device is to “burn” it into the memory of Israel. The narrative itself would be remembered more easily by the name and its motif. The namings in the wilderness wanderings remind the faithful of unbelief, and warn us all not to murmur as they murmured. See further A. P. Ross, “Paronomasia and Popular Etymologies in the Naming Narrative of the Old Testament,” Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1982.
[9:15] 4 sn This section (Num 9:15-23) recapitulates the account in Exod 40:34 but also contains some additional detail about the cloud that signaled Israel’s journeys. Here again material from the book of Exodus is used to explain more of the laws for the camp in motion.
[9:15] 5 tn Heb “and/now on the day.”
[9:15] 6 tn The construction uses the temporal expression with the Hiphil infinitive construct followed by the object, the tabernacle. “On the day of the setting up of the tabernacle” leaves the subject unstated, and so the entire clause may be expressed in the passive voice.
[9:15] 7 sn The explanation and identification of this cloud has been a subject of much debate. Some commentators have concluded that it was identical with the cloud that led the Israelites away from Egypt and through the sea, but others have made a more compelling case that this is a different phenomenon (see ZPEB 4:796). A number of modern scholars see the description as a retrojection from later, perhaps Solomonic times (see G. H. Davies, IDB 3:817). Others have tried to connect it with Ugaritic terminology, but unconvincingly (see T. W. Mann, “The Pillar of Cloud in the Reed Sea Narrative,” JBL 90 [1971]: 15-30; G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, 32-66, 209-13; and R. Good, “Cloud Messengers?” UF 10 [1978]: 436-37).
[9:15] 8 sn The cloud apparently was centered over the tent, over the spot of the ark of the covenant in the most holy place. It thereafter spread over the whole tabernacle.
[9:15] 9 tn The imperfect tense in this and the next line should be classified as a customary imperfect, stressing incomplete action but in the past time – something that used to happen, or would happen.
[9:15] 10 tn Heb “like the appearance of fire.”
[11:1] 5 sn The chapter includes the initial general complaints (vv. 1-3), the complaints about food (vv. 4-9), Moses’ own complaint to the
[11:1] 6 tn The temporal clause uses the Hitpoel infinitive construct from אָנַן (’anan). It is a rare word, occurring in Lam 3:39. With this blunt introduction the constant emphasis of obedience to the word of the
[11:1] 7 tn Heb “it was evil in the ears of the
[11:1] 8 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb as a temporal clause.
[11:1] 9 tn The common Hebrew expression uses the verb חָרָה (harah, “to be hot, to burn, to be kindled”). The subject is אַפּוֹ (’appo), “his anger” or more literally, his nose, which in this anthropomorphic expression flares in rage. The emphasis is superlative – “his anger raged.”
[11:1] 10 tn The vav (ו) consecutive does not simply show sequence in the verbs, but here expresses the result of the anger of the
[11:1] 11 sn The “fire of the
[21:28] 6 tc Some scholars emend to בָּלְעָה (bal’ah), reading “and devoured,” instead of בַּעֲלֵי (ba’aley, “its lords”); cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV. This emendation is closer to the Greek and makes a better parallelism, but the MT makes good sense as it stands.
[3:4] 7 tn The verb form is the preterite with vav (ו) consecutive, literally “and Nadab died.” Some commentators wish to make the verb a past perfect, rendering it “and Nadab had died,” but this is not necessary. In tracing through the line from Aaron it simply reports that the first two sons died. The reference is to the event recorded in Lev 10 where the sons brought “strange” or foreign” fire to the sanctuary.
[3:4] 8 tc This initial clause is omitted in one Hebrew
[3:4] 9 tn The form בְּהַקְרִבָם (bÿhaqrivam) is the Hiphil infinitive construct functioning as a temporal clause: “when they brought near,” meaning, “when they offered.” The verb קָרַב (qarav) is familiar to students of the NT because of “corban” in Mark 7:11.
[3:4] 10 tn Or “prohibited.” See HALOT 279 s.v. זָר 3.
[3:4] 11 tn The expression אֵשׁ זָרָה (’esh zarah, “strange fire”) seems imprecise and has been interpreted numerous ways (see the helpful summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC 4], 132-33). The infraction may have involved any of the following or a combination thereof: (1) using coals from some place other than the burnt offering altar (i.e., “unauthorized coals” according to J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:598; cf. Lev 16:12 and cf. “unauthorized person” [אִישׁ זָר, ’ish zar] in Num 16:40 [17:5 HT], NASB “layman”), (2) using the wrong kind of incense (cf. the Exod 30:9 regulation against “strange incense” [קְטֹרֶת זָרָה, qÿtoret zarah] on the incense altar and the possible connection to Exod 30:34-38), (3) performing an incense offering at an unprescribed time (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 59), or (4) entering the Holy of Holies at an inappropriate time (Lev 16:1-2).
[3:4] 12 sn The two young priests had been cut down before they had children; the ranks of the family of Aaron were thereby cut in half in one judgment from God. The significance of the act of judgment was to show that the priests had to sanctify the
[3:4] 13 tn The verb is the Piel preterite from the root כָּהַן (kahan): “to function as a priest” or “to minister.”
[3:4] 14 tn The expression “in the presence of” can also mean “during the lifetime of” (see Gen 11:28; see also BDB 818 s.v. פָּנֶה II.7.a; cf. NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV).
[14:14] 8 tn The singular participle is to be taken here as a collective, representing all the inhabitants of the land.
[14:14] 9 tn “Face to face” is literally “eye to eye.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 52:8. This expresses the closest communication possible.