Texts For Bamidbar

(1) ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to Aaron and say to him, “When you mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the lampstand.” (3) Aaron did so; he mounted the lamps at the front of the lampstand, as ה׳ had commanded Moses.— (4) Now this is how the lampstand was made: it was hammered work of gold, hammered from base to petal. According to the pattern that ה׳ had shown Moses, so was the lampstand made.

(29) Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which ה׳ has said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will be generous with you; for ה׳ has promised to be generous to Israel.” (30) “I will not go,” he replied to him, “but will return to my native land.” (31) He said, “Please do not leave us, inasmuch as you know where we should camp in the wilderness and can be our guide. (32) So if you come with us, we will extend to you the same bounty that ה׳ grants us.” (33) They marched from the mountain of ה׳ a distance of three days. The Ark of the Covenant of ה׳ traveled in front of them on that three days’ journey to seek out a resting place for them; (34) and ה׳’s cloud kept above them by day, as they moved on from camp. (35) When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O ה׳ ! May Your enemies be scattered, And may Your foes flee before You! (36) And when it halted, he would say: Return, O ה׳, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!

(1) The people took to complaining bitterly before ה׳. ה׳ heard and was incensed: a fire of ה׳ broke out against them, ravaging the outskirts of the camp. (2) The people cried out to Moses. Moses prayed to ה׳, and the fire died down. (3) That place was named Taberah, because a fire of ה׳ had broken out against them. (4) The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! (5) We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. (6) Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!” (7) Now the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium. (8) The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream. (9) When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall upon it. (10) Moses heard the people weeping, every clan apart, at the entrance of each tent. ה׳ was very angry, and Moses was distressed. (11) And Moses said to ה׳, “Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me? (12) Did I produce all these people, did I engender them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a caregiver carries an infant,’ to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers? (13) Where am I to get meat to give to all this people, when they whine before me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ (14) I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. (15) If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!” (16) Then ה׳ said to Moses, “Gather for Me seventy of Israel’s elders of whom you have experience as elders and officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their place there with you. (17) I will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone. (18) And say to the people: Purify yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have kept whining before ה׳ and saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Indeed, we were better off in Egypt!’ ה׳ will give you meat and you shall eat. (19) You shall eat not one day, not two, not even five days or ten or twenty, (20) but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. For you have rejected ה׳ who is among you, by whining before [God] and saying, ‘Oh, why did we ever leave Egypt!’” (21) But Moses said, “The people who are with me number six hundred thousand foot soldiers; yet You say, ‘I will give them enough meat to eat for a whole month.’ (22) Could enough flocks and herds be slaughtered to suffice them? Or could all the fish of the sea be gathered for them to suffice them?” (23) And ה׳ answered Moses, “Is there a limit to ה׳’s power? You shall soon see whether what I have said happens to you or not!” (24) Moses went out and reported the words of ה׳ to the people. He gathered seventy of the people’s elders and stationed them around the Tent. (25) Then, after coming down in a cloud and speaking to him, ה׳ drew upon the spirit that was on him and put it upon the seventy participating elders. And when the spirit rested upon them, they spoke in ecstasy, but did not continue. (26) Two of the participants, one named Eldad and the other Medad, had remained in camp; yet the spirit rested upon them—they were among those recorded, but they had not gone out to the Tent—and they spoke in ecstasy in the camp. (27) An assistant ran out and told Moses, saying, “Eldad and Medad are acting the prophet in the camp!” (28) And Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ attendant from his youth, spoke up and said, “My lord Moses, restrain them!” (29) But Moses said to him, “Are you wrought up on my account? Would that all ה׳’s people were prophets, that ה׳ put [the divine] spirit upon them!” (30) Moses then reentered the camp together with the elders of Israel. (31) A wind from ה׳ started up, swept quail from the sea and strewed them over the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and about a day’s journey on that side, all around the camp, and some two cubits deep on the ground. (32) The people set to gathering quail all that day and night and all the next day—even the one who gathered least had ten ḥomers—and they spread them out all around the camp. (33) The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of ה׳ blazed forth against the people and ה׳ struck the people with a very severe plague. (34) That place was named Kibroth-hattaavah, because the people who had the craving were buried there. (35) Then the people set out from Kibroth-hattaavah for Hazeroth. When they were in Hazeroth,

(1) Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had taken [into his household as his wife]: “He took a Cushite woman!” (2) They said, “Has ה׳ spoken only through Moses? Has [God] not spoken through us as well?” ה׳ heard it. (3) Now Moses himself was very humble, more so than any other human being on earth. (4) Suddenly ה׳ called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three of them went out. (5) ה׳ came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron and Miriam!” The two of them came forward; (6) and [God] said, “Hear these My words: When prophets of ה׳ arise among you, I make Myself known to them in a vision, I speak with them in a dream. (7) Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household. (8) With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of ה׳. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!” (9) Still incensed with them, ה׳ departed. (10) As the cloud withdrew from the Tent, there was Miriam stricken with snow-white scales! When Aaron turned toward Miriam, he saw that she was stricken with scales. (11) And Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly. (12) Let her not be like a stillbirth which emerges from its mother’s womb with half its flesh eaten away!” (13) So Moses cried out to ה׳, saying, “O God, pray heal her!” (14) But ה׳ said to Moses, “If her father spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of camp for seven days, and then let her be readmitted.” (15) So Miriam was shut out of camp seven days; and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted. (16) After that the people set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.

(1) ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying, (2) “Send agents to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people; send one participant from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a chieftain among them.” (3) So Moses, by ה׳’s command, sent them out from the wilderness of Paran, all of them being men of consequence, leaders of the Israelites. (4) And these were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur. (5) From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori. (6) From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh. (7) From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph. (8) From the tribe of Ephraim, Hosea son of Nun. (9) From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Rafu. (10) From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi. (11) From the tribe of Joseph, namely, the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi. (12) From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli. (13) From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael. (14) From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi. (15) From the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. (16) Those were the names of the participants whom Moses sent to scout the land; but Moses changed the name of Hosea son of Nun to Joshua. (17) When Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the Negeb and on into the hill country, (18) and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? (19) Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? (20) Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”—Now it happened to be the season of the first ripe grapes. (21) They went up and scouted the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at Lebo-hamath. (22) They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron, where lived Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites.—Now Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan of Egypt.— (23) They reached the wadi Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes—it had to be borne on a carrying frame by two of them—and some pomegranates and figs. (24) That place was named the wadi Eshcol because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down there. (25) At the end of forty days they returned from scouting the land. (26) They went straight to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran, and they made their report to them and to the whole community, as they showed them the fruit of the land. (27) This is what they told him: “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. (28) However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the Anakites there. (29) Amalekites dwell in the Negeb region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan.” (30) Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” (31) But the other men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” (32) Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of great size; (33) we saw the Nephilim there—the Anakites are part of the Nephilim—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”

(1) The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. (2) All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness!” (3) “Why is ה׳ taking us to that land to fall by the sword?” “Our wives and children will be carried off!” “It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” (4) And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.” (5) Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembled congregation of Israelites. (6) And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of those who had scouted the land, rent their clothes (7) and exhorted the whole Israelite community: “The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. (8) If pleased with us, ה׳ will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us; (9) only you must not rebel against ה׳. Have no fear then of the people of the country, for they are our prey: their protection has departed from them, but ה׳ is with us. Have no fear of them!” (10) As the whole community threatened to pelt them with stones, the Presence of ה׳ appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. (11) And ה׳ said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst? (12) I will strike them with pestilence and disown them, and I will make of you a nation far more numerous than they!” (13) But Moses said to ה׳, “When the Egyptians, from whose midst You brought up this people in Your might, hear the news, (14) they will tell it to the inhabitants of that land. Now they have heard that You, ה׳, are in the midst of this people; that You, ה׳, appear in plain sight when Your cloud rests over them and when You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. (15) If then You slay this people wholesale, the nations who have heard Your fame will say, (16) ‘It must be because ה׳ was powerless to bring that people into the land promised them on oath that [that god] slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ (17) Therefore, I pray, let my Lord’s forbearance be great, as You have declared, saying, (18) ‘יהוה ! slow to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression; yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children, upon the third and fourth generations.’ (19) Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to Your great kindness, as You have forgiven this people ever since Egypt.” (20) And ה׳ said, “I pardon, as you have asked. (21) Nevertheless, as I live and as ה׳’s Presence fills the whole world, (22) none of those involved—who have seen My Presence and the signs that I have performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tried Me these many times and have disobeyed Me— (23) shall see the land that I promised on oath to their fathers; none of those who spurn Me shall see it. (24) But My servant Caleb, because he was imbued with a different spirit and remained loyal to Me—him will I bring into the land that he entered, and his offspring shall hold it as a possession. (25) Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites occupy the valleys. Start out, then, tomorrow and march into the wilderness by way of the Sea of Reeds.” (26) ה׳ spoke further to Moses and Aaron, (27) “How much longer shall that wicked community keep muttering against Me? Very well, I have heeded the incessant muttering of the Israelites against Me. (28) Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says ה׳, ‘I will do to you just as you have urged Me. (29) In this very wilderness shall your carcasses drop. Of all of you [men] who were recorded in your various lists from the age of twenty years up, you who have muttered against Me, (30) not one shall enter the land in which I swore to settle you—save Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. (31) Your children who, you said, would be carried off—these will I allow to enter; they shall know the land that you have rejected. (32) But your carcasses shall drop in this wilderness, (33) while your children roam the wilderness for forty years, suffering for your faithlessness, until the last of your carcasses is down in the wilderness. (34) You shall bear your punishment for forty years, corresponding to the number of days—forty days—that you scouted the land: a year for each day. Thus you shall know what it means to thwart Me. (35) I ה׳ have spoken: Thus will I do to all that wicked band that has banded together against Me: in this very wilderness they shall die and so be finished off.’” (36) As for the agents whom Moses sent to scout the land, those who came back and caused the whole community to mutter against him by spreading calumnies about the land— (37) those who spread such calumnies about the land died of plague, by the will of ה׳. (38) Of those involved in going to scout the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived. (39) When Moses repeated these words to all the Israelites, the people were overcome by grief. (40) Early next morning [their fighting force] set out toward the crest of the hill country, saying, “We are prepared to go up to the place that ה׳ has spoken of, for we were wrong.” (41) But Moses said, “Why do you transgress ה׳’s command? This will not succeed. (42) Do not go up, lest you be routed by your enemies, for ה׳ is not in your midst. (43) For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there to face you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned from following ה׳ and ה׳ will not be with you.” (44) Yet defiantly they marched toward the crest of the hill country, though neither ה׳’s Ark of the Covenant nor Moses stirred from the camp. (45) And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that hill country came down and dealt them a shattering blow at Hormah.

(1) ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you to settle in,

(1) The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there. (2) The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron. (3) The people quarreled with Moses, saying, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished at the instance of ה׳ ! (4) Why have you brought ה׳’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die there? (5) Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (6) Moses and Aaron came away from the congregation to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. The Presence of ה׳ appeared to them, (7) and ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying, (8) “You and your brother Aaron take the rod and assemble the community, and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water. Thus you shall produce water for them from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their beasts.” (9) Moses took the rod from before ה׳, as he had been commanded. (10) Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation in front of the rock; and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (11) And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod. Out came copious water, and the community and their beasts drank. (12) But ה׳ said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.” (13) Those are the Waters of Meribah —meaning that the Israelites quarrelled with ה׳ —whose sanctity was affirmed through them. (14) From Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardships that have befallen us; (15) that our ancestors went down to Egypt, that we dwelt in Egypt a long time, and that the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our ancestors. (16) We cried to ה׳ who heard our plea, sending a messenger who freed us from Egypt. Now we are in Kadesh, the town on the border of your territory. (17) Allow us, then, to cross your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, and we will not drink water from wells. We will follow the king’s highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left until we have crossed your territory.” (18) But Edom answered him, “You shall not pass through us, else we will go out against you with the sword.” (19) “We will keep to the beaten track,” the Israelites said to them, “and if we or our cattle drink your water, we will pay for it. We ask only for passage on foot—it is but a small matter.” (20) But they replied, “You shall not pass through!” And Edom went out against them in heavy force, strongly armed. (21) So Edom would not let Israel cross their territory, and Israel turned away from them. (22) Setting out from Kadesh, the Israelites arrived in a body at Mount Hor. (23) At Mount Hor, on the boundary of the land of Edom, ה׳ said to Moses and Aaron, (24) “Let Aaron be gathered to his kin: he is not to enter the land that I have assigned to the Israelite people, because you disobeyed My command about the Waters of Meribah. (25) Take Aaron and his son Eleazar and bring them up on Mount Hor. (26) Strip Aaron of his vestments and put them on his son Eleazar. There Aaron shall be gathered unto the dead.” (27) Moses did as ה׳ had commanded. They ascended Mount Hor in the sight of the whole community. (28) Moses stripped Aaron of his vestments and put them on his son Eleazar, and Aaron died there on the summit of the mountain. When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain, (29) the whole community knew that Aaron had breathed his last. All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days.