21:22 “Let us 4 pass through your land; 5 we will not turn aside into the fields or into the vineyards, nor will we drink water from any well, but we will go along the King’s Highway until we pass your borders.”
22:4 So the Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “Now this mass of people 6 will lick up everything around us, as the bull devours the grass of the field. Now Balak son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at this time.
1 tn The request is expressed by the use of the cohortative, “let us pass through.” It is the proper way to seek permission.
2 sn This a main highway running from Damascus in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba, along the ridge of the land. Some scholars suggest that the name may have been given by the later Assyrians (see B. Obed, “Observations on Methods of Assyrian Rule in Transjordan after the Palestinian Campaign of Tiglathpileser III,” JNES 29 [1970]: 177-86). Bronze Age fortresses have been discovered along this highway, attesting to its existence in the time of Moses. The original name came from the king who developed the highway, probably as a trading road (see S. Cohen, IDB 3:35-36).
3 tn Heb “borders.”
4 tn The Hebrew text uses the singular in these verses to match the reference to “Israel.”
5 tc Smr has “by the King’s way I will go. I will not turn aside to the right or the left.”
6 tn The word is simply “company,” but in the context he must mean a vast company – a horde of people.