Tag Info

Sticking just to the text: In the earlier passage, God commanded Moshe to strike the rock and he obeyed. In the present passage, God commanded Moshe to speak and he struck instead. (It's been 39 years, so "that's what we did last time" probably doesn't apply.) Why is this a problem? Look at what Moshe said: shall we bring water for you out of this ...

The choices seem to be: We correctly understand the text and it was a miracle. Two million or so people left Egypt and (mostly) died in the desert, where their bones were never found (looking would be a huge archeological task). If we can accept the miracles of the plagues, the crossing of the sea of reeds, the giving of torah, and sustaining everybody ...

Part 1 – The ambiguity ולא יספו, ve'lo yasafu “ve'lo” means: “and didn't/weren't” The suffix “-u” means “they” Without knowing the meaning of the word yasaf, we have “and they didn't/weren't ... [yasaf]” The meaning of yasaf is ambiguous and can come from one of two Hebrew roots: אספ, asaf of יספ, yasaf. [Strongs H3254 and H622] Asaf means “to ...

The first two reasons are easy to understand with Balaam being a pagan prophet. After all his encounters with God and the angel threatening to kill him, Balaam doesn't dare do anything except speak the words YHWH gave him. As a polytheist, he will sacrifice to any deity which helps him. Most likely, he is a henotheist (in the geographic sense) and ...

The numbers are accurate as they have been translated. There were ~600,000 Israelites in the Wilderness (and in Egypt). Proof These are those who were numbered of the sons of Israel, 601,730. -Numbers 26:51 Earlier in the chapter we are given the counts of each individual tribe. They add up as follows: 1) 43,730 from the tribe of Reuben 2) 22,200 ...

The bible was written in a time of a primarily oral culture. Repetition is often used for emphasis or to drive home a point (as Seeker of Truth mentioned), and to make things easier to remember. So important things were repeated a whole bunch of times in slightly different words to make it easier to remember. Even if you didn't remember it the first several ...

Could not the Lord have "instigated" the people to spy the land through indirect means, and therefore solve the conundrum? For example, Satan incited David to number the Israelites in a census (1 Chr 21:1), but in 2 Sam 24:1 it is the Lord who is the subject of the Hebrew verb סוּת, and therefore in the immediate grammatical context it was the Lord who had ...

The argument I have read is that the word often translated thousands means "fighting units" and the number after is the number of soldiers in those units. Thus, it would be "64 units, 400 soldiers from the tribe of Dan." While the Lexicons and word books such as Gesenius and Strong point out that eleph can mean "a company of troops fighting under one ...

This test has many dimensions to it. It has little to do with the guilt or innocence of the woman. In order for the test to apply, the woman must become foolish. This has been interpreted to mean that she has aroused her husband's jealousy by flirting. Or she has aroused the suspicion of witnesses to her flirting, but they have not witnessed adultery, and ...

I just want to pop in here to add that it's important to remember that the way that we think of "blue", "purple", and "red", is necessarily not the same as how the Biblical audience would have thought of "tekheleth", "argaman", and "shani". In particular, I'm not sure that the "red+blue=purple" argument is particularly applicable here, since these colours ...

The first answer: Numbers 9:15 states: "On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, a cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Ten of Meeting, and in the evening the Tabernacle appeared to be lit by the brightness of fire until morning..." That is, the cloud/fire miracle started when the Tabernacle was set up. In Exodus 40:18 we have "And it was in the first month ...

It should be noted that the numbers given in the census at the beginning of Numbers are also disputed (which would affect the numbers available for Midian's army here). The most probable solution at this point is to understand that the numbers given here are mixtures. Since the Hebrew word translated “thousand” (‘lp) looks the same as the word ...

Perhaps someone has a more authoritative answer, but I'll try to explain as best I understand it: The KJV (as well as most of its predecessors, eg: Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva Bible, etc) were based off of manuscripts that were available at the time. We hadn't found the dead sea scrolls amongst other ancient manuscripts that most modern translations also ...

The medieval scholar Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) reads this as God allowing Bilaam to exercise his free will. He cites an earlier source, Numbers Rabbah 20:12, which says (Soncino translation): IF THE MEN ARE COME TO CALL THEE, RISE UP, AND GO WITH THEM (XXII, 20). From this you can infer that a man is led in the way he desires to go. For at ...

The Nazirite vow was a means of extending the guarding role of the priesthood to an Israelite - either male or female - for the purpose of holy war. It was a sort of "priestly knighthood." The vow is a miniature of Israel's sojourn in the wilderness - an emptying and a humbling followed by a filling and a glorification. The "Covenant head" is empty and ...

Sergey, you ask a very valid question, especially given what is stated in Matthew 6:7 about not using meaningless repetition ( “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words." Mt. 6:7, NASB). Given this teaching, we can know that the repetition in Leviticus and ...

Rom 1.18 ff tells us that God gives us what we want and permits us to wallow in the consequences when we choose against his will. God makes his will clear. Balaam wishes to go anyway. God stops him to remind him that his choice opposes God. When Balaam feigns a repentance, God permits him to go to teach him although Balaam thinks that he is in charge of ...

I am proposing two options, one obvious and one subtle. The obvious meaning of blue, purple and scarlet, would be that they are associated with precious fabrics and in some cases even royal colors. I think this is sometimes the meaning that they convey in the Bible. For example,  When Mordecai left the king’s presence, he was wearing royal garments of ...

I am not an expert in Hebrew but this seems simple enough for me. The Hebrew אָחִ֑יו is sometimes translated, to his brother, his brother, brother, his relative, another. In this particular verse it is translated as 'another' because אִ֣ישׁ (to one) אֶל־ (about) אָחִ֑יו (bother, or another) is the sentence fragment being considered. When combining these ...

I don't see any support in the text for this translation, but the variation is much older than KJV. According to Rashi the targum renders this "and did not cease". (Relatedly, in Gen 38:26 the targum doesn't but another source does, leading to a rather different understanding of Yehudah and Tamar.) I am not fluent in Aramaic and can't evaluate the targum ...

What Moses did wrong is exactly what the Hebrews did wrong when they sent the spies and they believed the pesimistic report given by the spies. In both cases, G-d told them that they could do something that in any other circumstance would be considered a miracle . . . and they didn't believe Him. Consider these facts. At Exodus 6:8 G-d promises to the ...

Leprosy is representative of sin, which in the Hebrew Bible made one "dirty" (unclean). For example, the "tautological" repetition of leprosy and its signs in the house formally occupied by Canaanites (in the latter half of Chapter 14), while speaking to mold or persistent mildew, may also speak to the possession of the house by unclean spirits. (Nota Bene: ...

The answer is surprisingly simple. First the Edomites resisted them, then later on the Edomites became afraid of them and allowed them to pass: ‘You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward and command the people, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and ...

The repetition of the tribal gifts at the dedication of the Tabernacle has an important purpose. As pointed out by Rav Shlomo Breur, as quoted by Rav Yisachar Frand, the Torah could have told us that "Nachshon brought these things as a gift and all the other tribes gave the same thing." But it didn't because when describing gifts it is not what was given, ...

The answer is that the entire Bible consists of literary architecture. The Book of Numbers, for instance, contains seven symmetrical "cycles," and each of these contains seven "cycles," each of which contains seven stanzas, each of which contains seven lines. Viewed in a linear fashion, it looks like DNA. Viewed side by side, it looks like the weaving of an ...

Let me make an attempt at interpreting ancient biblical hebrew: וַיִּשְׁמַע and hears-he הַכְּנַעֲנִי the canaanite מֶלֶךְ־עֲרָד king of arad יֹשֵׁב (who) lives in הַנֶּגֶב the Negev כִּי that בָּא comes-he יִשְׂרָאֵל Israel דֶּרֶךְ (by) way of alternatively: passing thro הָאֲתָרִים the spies וַיִּלָּחֶם and fights-he בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל in Israel ...

Sensus plenior provides means for solving riddles since things which take metaphoric meaning must have that meaning everywhere they occur. The first clue is that though blue, purple and scarlet are closely associated most of the time, occasionally gold is added to the group. We have a group of colors following the pattern of 3+1. This is the pattern of ...

Some classical Jewish commentaries describe Balaam as a worshiper of Gᴏᴅ, but in a pagan manner: rather than submitting himself to Gᴏᴅ’s will, he believed he could compel or bribe Gᴏᴅ to follow his wishes through sacrifices & sorcery. (Note that Jewish tradition does not see sorcery as inherently evil or forbidden to non-Jews.) In the Midrash, the ...