23:4 Then God met Balaam, who 9 said to him, “I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.”
23:8 How 10 can I curse 11 one whom God has not cursed,
or how can I denounce one whom the Lord has not denounced?
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Hobab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn The figure is aposiopesis, or sudden silence. The main verb is deleted from the line, “how long…this evil community.” The intensity of the emotion is the reason for the ellipsis.
3 sn It is worth mentioning in passing that this is one of the Rabbinic proof texts for having at least ten men to form a congregation and have prayer. If God called ten men (the bad spies) a “congregation,” then a congregation must have ten men. But here the word “community/congregation” refers in this context to the people of Israel as a whole, not just to the ten spies.
4 sn Here again is the oath that God swore in his wrath, an oath he swore by himself, that they would not enter the land. “As the
5 tn The word נְאֻם (nÿ’um) is an “oracle.” It is followed by the subjective genitive: “the oracle of the
6 tn Heb “in my ears.”
sn They had expressed the longing to have died in the wilderness, and not in war. God will now give them that. They would not say to God “your will be done,” so he says to them, “your will be done” (to borrow from C. S. Lewis).
7 tn The construction uses the Piel infinitive כַּבֵּד (kabbed) to intensify the verb, which is the Piel imperfect/cohortative אֲכַבֶּדְךָ (’akhabbedkha). The great honor could have been wealth, prestige, or position.
8 tn The optative clause is introduced with the particle לוּ (lu).
9 tn The relative pronoun is added here in place of the conjunction to clarify that Balaam is speaking to God and not vice versa.
10 tn The figure is erotesis, a rhetorical question. He is actually saying he cannot curse them because God has not cursed them.
11 tn The imperfect tense should here be classified as a potential imperfect.
12 tn Heb “flee to your place.”