Numbers 21:2-4

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Numbers 21:2 tn The Hebrew text uses a cognate accusative with the verb: “Israel vowed a vow.” The Israelites were therefore determined with God’s help to defeat Arad.
2. Numbers 21:2 tn The Hebrew text has the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of נָתַן (natan) to stress the point—“if you will surely/indeed give.”
3. Numbers 21:2 tn Heb “my.”
4. Numbers 21:2 tn On the surface this does not sound like much of a vow. But the key is in the use of the verb for “utterly destroy”—חָרַם (kharam). Whatever was put to this “ban” or “devotion” belonged to God, either for his use or for destruction. The oath was in fact saying that they would take nothing from this for themselves. It would simply be the removal of what was alien to the faith or to God’s program.
5. Numbers 21:3 tc Smr, Greek, and Syriac add “into his hand.”
6. Numbers 21:3 tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject, and so here too is made passive. The name “Hormah” is etymologically connected to the verb “utterly destroy,” forming the popular etymology (or paronomasia, a phonetic wordplay capturing the significance of the event).
7. Numbers 21:4 tn The “Red Sea” is the general designation for the bodies of water on either side of the Sinai peninsula, even though they are technically gulfs from the Red Sea.
8. Numbers 21:4 tn Heb “the soul of the people,” expressing the innermost being of the people as they became frustrated.