14:44 But they dared 1 to go up to the crest of the hill, although 2 neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp.
14:40 And early 3 in the morning they went up to the crest of the hill country, 4 saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that the Lord commanded, 5 for we have sinned.” 6
1 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.”
2 tn The disjunctive vav (ו) here introduces a circumstantial clause; the most appropriate one here would be the concessive “although.”
3 tn The verb וַיַּשְׁכִּמוּ (vayyashkimu) is often found in a verbal hendiadys construction: “They rose early…and they went up” means “they went up early.”
4 tn The Hebrew text says literally “the top of the hill,” but judging from the location and the terrain it probably means the heights of the hill country.
5 tn The verb is simply “said,” but it means the place that the
6 sn Their sin was unbelief. They could have gone and conquered the area if they had trusted the