Numbers 9:22

9:22 Whether it was for two days, or a month, or a year, ¹  that the cloud prolonged its stay ²  over the tabernacle, the Israelites remained camped without traveling; ³  but when it was taken up, they traveled on.

Numbers 12:14

12:14 The Lord said to Moses, “If her father had only spit ⁴  in her face, would she not have been disgraced for seven days? Shut her out from the camp seven days, and afterward she can be brought back in again.”

[9:22]  ¹ tn The MT has אוֹ־יָמִים (’o-yamim). Most translators use “or a year” to interpret this expression in view of the sequence of words leading up to it, as well as in comparison with passages like Judg 17:10 and 1 Sam 1:3 and 27:7. See also the uses in Gen 40:4 and 1 Kgs 17:15. For the view that it means four months, see F. S. North, “Four Month Season of the Hebrew Bible,” VT 11 (1961): 446-48.

[9:22]  ² tn In the Hebrew text this sentence has a temporal clause using the preposition with the Hiphil infinitive construct of אָרַךְ (’arakh) followed by the subjective genitive, “the cloud.” But this infinitive is followed by the infinitive construct לִשְׁכֹּן (lishkon), the two of them forming a verbal hendiadys: “the cloud made long to stay” becomes “the cloud prolonged its stay.”

[9:22]  ³ tn Heb “and they would not journey”; the clause can be taken adverbially, explaining the preceding verbal clause.

[12:14]  ⁴ tn The form is intensified by the infinitive absolute, but here the infinitive strengthens not simply the verbal idea but the conditional cause construction as well.