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Numbers 22:34-36
New English Translation
Numbers 22:34-36
New English Translation
34 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood against me in the road.[a] So now, if it is evil in your sight,[b] I will go back home.”[c] 35 But the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but you may only speak[d] the word that I will speak to you.”[e] So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.
Balaam Meets Balak
36 When Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at a city of Moab that was on the border of the Arnon at the boundary of his territory.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Numbers 22:34 sn Balaam is not here making a general confession of sin. What he is admitting to is a procedural mistake. The basic meaning of the word is “to miss the mark.” He now knows he took the wrong way, i.e., in coming to curse Israel.
- Numbers 22:34 sn The reference is to Balaam’s way. He is saying that if what he is doing is so perverse, so evil, he will turn around and go home. Of course it did not appear that he had much of a chance of going forward.
- Numbers 22:34 tn The verb is the cohortative from “return”: I will return [me].
- Numbers 22:35 tn The imperfect tense here can be given the nuance of permission.
- Numbers 22:35 tn The Hebrew word order is a little more emphatic than this: “but only the word which I speak to you, it you shall speak.”
New English Translation (NET)
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