9:20 When 1 the cloud remained over the tabernacle a number of days, 2 they remained camped according to the Lord’s commandment, 3 and according to the Lord’s commandment they would journey.
19:14 “‘This is the law: When a man dies 7 in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.
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.
31:19 “Any of you who has killed anyone or touched any of the dead, remain outside the camp for seven days; purify yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.
1 tn The sentence uses וְיֵשׁ (vÿyesh) followed by a noun clause introduced with אֲשֶׁר (’asher) to express an existing situation; it is best translated as an adverbial clause of time: “and it was when the cloud was….”
2 tn The word “number” is in apposition to the word “days” to indicate that their stay was prolonged for quite a few days.
3 tn Heb “mouth of the
4 tn The MT has אוֹ־יָמִים (’o-yamim). Most translators use “or a year” to interpret this expression in view of the sequence of words leading up to it, as well as in comparison with passages like Judg 17:10 and 1 Sam 1:3 and 27:7. See also the uses in Gen 40:4 and 1 Kgs 17:15. For the view that it means four months, see F. S. North, “Four Month Season of the Hebrew Bible,” VT 11 (1961): 446-48.
5 tn In the Hebrew text this sentence has a temporal clause using the preposition with the Hiphil infinitive construct of אָרַךְ (’arakh) followed by the subjective genitive, “the cloud.” But this infinitive is followed by the infinitive construct לִשְׁכֹּן (lishkon), the two of them forming a verbal hendiadys: “the cloud made long to stay” becomes “the cloud prolonged its stay.”
6 tn Heb “and they would not journey”; the clause can be taken adverbially, explaining the preceding verbal clause.
7 tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”
8 tn The expression for “in the open field” is literally “upon the face of the field” (עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה, ’al pÿne hassadeh). This ruling is in contrast now to what was contacted in the tent.
9 tn Heb “a dead body”; but in contrast to the person killed with a sword, this must refer to someone who died of natural causes.
10 sn See Matt 23:27 and Acts 23:3 for application of this by the time of Jesus.
11 tc So many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, Smr, Syriac, and Latin Vulgate. Other witnesses have “from before Hahiroth.”