Numbers 9:21

9:21 And when ¹  the cloud remained only ²  from evening until morning, when the cloud was taken up ³  the following morning, then they traveled on. Whether by day or by night, when the cloud was taken up they traveled.

Numbers 14:40

14:40 And early ⁴  in the morning they went up to the crest of the hill country, ⁵  saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that the Lord commanded, ⁶  for we have sinned.” ⁷ 

Numbers 15:20

15:20 You must offer up a cake of the first of your finely ground flour ⁸  as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up.

Numbers 23:24

23:24 Indeed, the people will rise up like a lioness,

and like a lion raises himself up;

they will not lie down until they eat their ⁹  prey,

and drink the blood of the slain.” ¹⁰ 

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¹ tn The construction is the same in the preceding verse.

² tn “Only” is supplied to reflect the contrast between the two verses.

³ tn The construction in this half of the verse uses two vav (ו) consecutive clauses. The first is subordinated to the second as a temporal clause: “when…then….”

⁴ 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.”

⁵ 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.

⁶ tn The verb is simply “said,” but it means the place that the Lord said to go up to in order to fight.

⁷ sn Their sin was unbelief. They could have gone and conquered the area if they had trusted the Lord for their victory. They did not, and so they were condemned to perish in the wilderness. Now, thinking that by going they can undo all that, they plan to go. But this is also disobedience, for the Lord said they would not now take the land, and yet they think they can. Here is their second sin, presumption.

⁸ tn Or “the first of your dough.” The phrase is not very clear. N. H. Snaith thinks it means a batch of loaves from the kneading trough – the first batch of the baking (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 251).

⁹ tn The pronoun “their” has been supplied for clarity; it is not present in the Hebrew text.

¹⁰ sn The oracle compares Israel first to a lion, or better, lioness, because she does the tracking and hunting of food while the lion moves up and down roaring and distracting the prey. But the lion is also the traditional emblem of Judah, Dan and Gad, as well as the symbol of royalty. So this also supports the motif of royalty as well as power for Israel.