² tn Grk “the Son makes whomever he wants to live.”

² tn Grk “on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”

¹ tn Grk “on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”

¹ tn Heb “be afraid of them.” The antecedent is the “whomever” in v. 7.

¹ tn Heb “With whomever you find your gods, he will not live.”

⁴ tn The verb is the Piel imperfect of בָּרַךְ (barakh), with the nuance of possibility: “whomever you may bless.” The Pual participle מְבֹרָךְ (m^evorakh) serves as the predicate.

¹ tn The suffixes in the MT are plural in this verse, whereas in v. 17 they are singular. This seems to be a matter of stylistic choice, referring to whomever may be taking the vow.

¹ tc The LXX includes the following words: “Whomever the Lord will indicate by the lot, let him die! And the people said to Saul, ‘It is not this word.’ But Saul prevailed over the people, and they cast lots between him and between Jonathan his son.”

³ tn The text has simply שְׁלַח־נָא בְּיַד־תִּשְׁלָח (sh^elakh naʾ b^eyad tishlakh, “send by the hand you will send”). This is not Moses’ resignation to doing God’s will—it is his final attempt to avoid the call. It carries the force of asking God to send someone else. This is an example of an independent relative clause governed by the genitive: “by the hand of—whomever you will send” (see GKC 488-89 §155.n).

¹ sn Moses had not dared openly to say “except me” when he asked God to send whomever he wanted to send. But God knew that is what he meant. Moses should not have resisted the call or pleaded such excuses or hesitated with such weak faith. Now God abandoned the gentle answer and in anger brought in a form of retribution. Because Moses did not want to do this, he was punished by not having the honor of doing it alone. His reluctance and the result are like the refusal of Israel to enter the land and the result they experienced (see U. Cassuto, Exodus, 49-50).