18:8 The Lord spoke to Aaron, “See, I have given you the responsibility for my raised offerings; I have given all the holy things of the Israelites to you as your priestly portion 10 and to your sons as a perpetual ordinance.
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
28:7 “‘And its drink offering must be one quarter of a hin for each lamb. 20 You must pour out the strong drink 21 as a drink offering to the Lord in the holy place.
28:26 “‘Also, on the day of the first fruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the Lord during your Feast of Weeks, you are to have a holy assembly. You must do no ordinary work.
29:1 “‘On the first day of the seventh month, you are to hold a holy assembly. You must not do your ordinary work, for it is a day of blowing trumpets for you.
29:12 “‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you are to have a holy assembly; you must do no ordinary work, and you must keep a festival to the Lord for seven days.
31:6 So Moses sent them to the war, one thousand from every tribe, with Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest, who was in charge 22 of the holy articles 23 and the signal trumpets.
1 tn The word order is different in the Hebrew text: Do this…and they will live. Consequently, the verb “and they will live” is a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive to express the future consequence of “doing this” for them.
2 tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive continues the instruction for Aaron.
3 tn The distributive sense is obtained by the repetition, “a man” and “a man.”
4 tn This is probably water taken from the large bronze basin in the courtyard. It is water set apart for sacred service. “Clean water” (so NEB) does not capture the sense very well, but it does have the support of the Greek that has “pure running water.” That pure water would no doubt be from the bronze basin anyway.
5 tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a partitive sense.
6 sn The dust may have come from the sanctuary floor, but it is still dust, and therefore would have all the pollutants in it.
7 tn Heb “say to.”
8 tn The verb is the jussive with a vav (ו) coming after the imperative; it may be subordinated to form a purpose clause (“that he may pick up”) or the object of the imperative.
9 tn The Hebrew text just has “fire,” but it would be hard to conceive of this action apart from the idea of coals of fire.
10 tn This is an uncommon root. It may be connected to the word “anoint” as here (see RSV). But it may also be seen as an intended parallel to “perpetual due” (see Gen 47:22; Exod 29:28; Lev 6:11 [HT]).
11 tn The final clause could also be rendered “in order that you do not die.” The larger section can also be interpreted differently; rather than take it as a warning, it could be taken as an assurance that when they do all of this they will not be profaning it and so will not die (R. K. Harrison, Numbers [WEC], 253).
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 The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”
17 tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.
18 tn Heb “mouth.”
19 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.
20 tn Heb “the one lamb,” but it is meant to indicate for “each lamb.”
21 tn The word שֵׁכָר (shekhar) is often translated “strong drink.” It can mean “barley beer” in the Akkadian cognate, and also in the Hebrew Bible when joined with the word for wine. English versions here read “wine” (NAB, TEV, CEV); “strong wine” (KJV); “fermented drink” (NIV, NLT); “strong drink” (ASV, NASB, NRSV).
22 tn The Hebrew text uses the idiom that these “were in his hand,” meaning that he had the responsibility over them.
23 sn It is not clear what articles from the sanctuary were included. Tg. Ps.-J. adds (interpretively) “the Urim and Thummim.”