Numbers 11:2

11:2 When the people cried to Moses, he ¹  prayed to the Lord, and the fire died out. ² 

Numbers 11:35

11:35 The people traveled from Kibroth Hattaavah to Hazeroth, and they stayed at Hazeroth.

Numbers 12:16

12:16 After that the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Numbers 14:1

The Israelites Respond in Unbelief

14:1 ³ Then all the community raised a loud cry, ⁴  and the people wept ⁵  that night.

Numbers 14:39

14:39 When Moses told ⁶  these things to all the Israelites, the people mourned ⁷  greatly.

Numbers 31:11

31:11 They took all the plunder and all the spoils, both people and animals.

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¹ tn Heb “Moses.”

² sn Here is the pattern that will become in the wilderness experience so common – the complaining turns to a cry to Moses, which is then interpreted as a prayer to the Lord, and there is healing. The sequence presents a symbolic lesson, an illustration of the intercession of the Holy Spirit. The NT will say that in times of suffering Christians do not know how to pray, but the Spirit intercedes for them, changing their cries into the proper prayers (Rom 8).

³ sn This chapter forms part of the story already begun. There are three major sections here: dissatisfaction with the reports (vv. 1-10), the threat of divine punishment (vv. 11-38), and the defeat of the Israelites (vv. 39-45). See K. D. Sakenfeld, “The Problem of Divine Forgiveness in Num 14,” CBQ 37 (1975): 317-30; also J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word רֹאשׁ as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 (1969): 1-10.

⁴ tn The two verbs “lifted up their voice and cried” form a hendiadys; the idiom of raising the voice means that they cried aloud.

⁵ tn There are a number of things that the verb “to weep” or “wail” can connote. It could reflect joy, grief, lamentation, or repentance, but here it reflects fear, hopelessness, or vexation at the thought of coming all this way and being defeated by the Canaanite armies. See Judg 20:23, 26.

⁶ tn The preterite here is subordinated to the next preterite to form a temporal clause.

⁷ tn The word אָבַל (’aval) is rare, used mostly for mourning over deaths, but it is used here of mourning over bad news (see also Exod 33:4; 1 Sam 15:35; 16:1; etc.).