¹ 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.

² tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a partitive sense.

³ sn The dust may have come from the sanctuary floor, but it is still dust, and therefore would have all the pollutants in it.

⁴ tn Heb “seed.”

⁵ tn Here אַף (’af) has the sense of “in addition.” It is not a common use.

⁶ tn Heb “will you bore out the eyes of these men?” The question is “Will you continue to mislead them?” (or “hoodwink” them). In Deut 16:19 it is used for taking a bribe; something like that kind of deception is intended here. They are simply stating that Moses is a deceiver who is misleading the people with false promises.

⁷ tn Heb “took.”

⁸ tn Or “had spoken” (NASB); NRSV “had ordered.”

⁹ tn Here too the deictic particle (“and behold”) is added to draw attention to the sight in a vivid way.

¹⁰ sn There is no clear answer why the tribe of Levi had used an almond staff. The almond tree is one of the first to bud in the spring, and its white blossoms are a beautiful sign that winter is over. Its name became a name for “watcher”; Jeremiah plays on this name for God’s watching over his people (1:11-12).

¹¹ tn The sequence continues with the perfect tense and vav (ו) consecutive.

¹² tn Heb “his flesh.”

¹³ tn This is the imperfect of permission.

¹⁴ tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”

¹⁵ 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 Lord that leads to an appropriate action. Here God says that Moses did not believe him, meaning that what he did showed more of Moses than of what God said. Moses had taken a hostile stance toward the people, and then hit the rock twice. This showed that Moses was not satisfied with what God said, but made it more forceful and terrifying, thus giving the wrong picture of God to the people. By doing this the full power and might of the Lord was not displayed to the people. It was a momentary lack of faith, but it had to be dealt with.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

¹⁸ 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.

¹⁹ sn This is the standard poetic expression for death. The bones would be buried, often with the bones of relatives in the same tomb, giving rise to the expression.

²⁰ tn The verb is in the second person plural form, and so it is Moses and Aaron who rebelled, and so now because of that Aaron first and then Moses would die without going into the land.

²¹ tn Heb “mouth.”

²² tn Heb “Sihon.”

²³ tn Heb “people.”

²⁴ tn The clause begins with a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive, but may be subordinated to the next preterite as a temporal clause.

²⁵ tn Heb “he added to beat her,” another verbal hendiadys.

²⁶ tn The Hebrew text does not repeat the word “commanders” here, but it is implied.

²⁷ tn The purpose of the offering was to remind the Lord to remember Israel. But it would also be an encouragement for Israel as they remembered the great victory.

²⁸ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

²⁹ tc So many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, Smr, Syriac, and Latin Vulgate. Other witnesses have “from before Hahiroth.”

³⁰ tn The verb הָיָה (hayah) is most often translated “to be,” but it can also mean “to happen, to take place, to come to pass,” etc.

³¹ tn Heb “the tribe of our fathers.”