2:34 So the Israelites did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses; that is the way 1 they camped under their standards, and that is the way they traveled, each with his clan and family.
20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough 12 to show me as holy 13 before 14 the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” 15
24:1 22 When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, 23 he did not go as at the other times 24 to seek for omens, 25 but he set his face 26 toward the wilderness.
1 tn The Hebrew word is כֵּן (ken, “thus, so”).
2 tc The LXX omits this first clause; it also omits “at twilight.”
3 tn Heb “a month of days.” So also in v. 21.
4 tn The expression לְזָרָה (lÿzarah) has been translated “ill” or “loathsome.” It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The Greek text interprets it as “sickness.” It could be nausea or vomiting (so G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 112) from overeating.
5 sn The explanation is the interpretation of their behavior – it is in reality what they have done, even though they would not say they despised the
6 tn The use of the demonstrative pronoun here (“why is this we went out …”) is enclitic, providing emphasis to the sentence: “Why in the world did we ever leave Egypt?”
7 tn The verb נָסָה (nasah) means “to test, to tempt, to prove.” It can be used to indicate things are tried or proven, or for testing in a good sense, or tempting in the bad sense, i.e., putting God to the test. In all uses there is uncertainty or doubt about the outcome. Some uses of the verb are positive: If God tests Abraham in Genesis 22:1, it is because there is uncertainty whether he fears the
8 tn “Ten” is here a round figure, emphasizing the complete testing. But see F. V. Winnett, The Mosaic Tradition, 121-54.
9 tn Heb “listened to my voice.”
10 tn Heb “took.”
11 tn Or “had spoken” (NASB); NRSV “had ordered.”
12 tn Or “to sanctify me.”
sn The verb is the main word for “believe, trust.” It is the verb that describes the faith in the Word of the
13 sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.
14 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
15 tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.
16 tn Heb “Sihon.”
17 tn Heb “people.”
18 tn The clause begins with a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive, but may be subordinated to the next preterite as a temporal clause.
19 sn Balaam is not here making a general confession of sin. What he is admitting to is a procedural mistake. The basic meaning of the word is “to miss the mark.” He now knows he took the wrong way, i.e., in coming to curse Israel.
20 sn The reference is to Balaam’s way. He is saying that if what he is doing is so perverse, so evil, he will turn around and go home. Of course, it did not appear that he had much of a chance of going forward.
21 tn The verb is the cohortative from “return”: I will return [me].
22 sn For a thorough study of the arrangement of this passage, see E. B. Smick, “A Study of the Structure of the Third Balaam Oracle,” The Law and the Prophets, 242-52. He sees the oracle as having an introductory strophe (vv. 3, 4), followed by two stanzas (vv. 5, 6) that introduce the body (vv. 7b-9b) before the final benediction (v. 9b).
23 tn Heb “it was good in the eyes of the
24 tn Heb “as time after time.”
25 tn The word נְחָשִׁים (nÿkhashim) means “omens,” or possibly “auguries.” Balaam is not even making a pretense now of looking for such things, because they are not going to work. God has overruled them.
26 tn The idiom signifies that he had a determination and resolution to look out over where the Israelites were, so that he could appreciate more their presence and use that as the basis for his expressing of the oracle.
27 tn Heb “he was zealous with my zeal.” The repetition of forms for “zeal” in the line stresses the passion of Phinehas. The word “zeal” means a passionate intensity to protect or preserve divine or social institutions.
28 tn The word for “zeal” now occurs a third time. While some English versions translate this word here as “jealousy” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), it carries the force of God’s passionate determination to defend his rights and what is right about the covenant and the community and parallels the “zeal” that Phinehas had just demonstrated.
29 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the parallel yet chronologically later verb in the next clause.
30 tn The infinitive construct here with lamed (ל) is functioning as a result clause.
31 tn The