13:17 When Moses sent 1 them to investigate the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev, 2 and then go up into the hill country
14:44 But they dared 3 to go up to the crest of the hill, although 4 neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp. 14:45 So the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country swooped 5 down and attacked them 6 as far as Hormah. 7
1 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb of the same formation to express a temporal clause.
2 tn The instructions had them first go up into the southern desert of the land, and after passing through that, into the hill country of the Canaanites. The text could be rendered “into the Negev” as well as “through the Negev.”
3 tn N. H. Snaith compares Arabic ’afala (“to swell”) and gafala (“reckless, headstrong”; Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 248). The wordעֹפֶל (’ofel) means a “rounded hill” or a “tumor.” The idea behind the verb may be that of “swelling,” and so “act presumptuously.”
4 tn The disjunctive vav (ו) here introduces a circumstantial clause; the most appropriate one here would be the concessive “although.”
5 tn Heb “came down.”
6 tn The verb used here means “crush by beating,” or “pounded” them. The Greek text used “cut them in pieces.”
7 tn The name “Hormah” means “destruction”; it is from the word that means “ban, devote” for either destruction or temple use.