Linguistic Gap Analysis — Numbers

0. Scope and Method

This is PRD Phase 1 Step 8. Because English is both source and destination language for this pipeline, “linguistic gap” here does not mean a missing word in a foreign lexicon — it means a gap between (a) the semantic content Numbers’ Hebrew/LXX vocabulary requires and (b) what contemporary English’s existing word stock actually supplies, given competing secular, legal, denominational, and pop-culture senses already attached to the available English words. This mirrors the baseline Romans package’s own three drift categories (false-friend, denominational contest, obsolescence) plus the Numbers-specific fourth category introduced in 08_core_glossary.md: pop-culture/associative collision (PC).

Coverage confirmation: every chapter of Numbers 1–36 has been reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary gaps. Section 5 records chapter-by-chapter status, including chapters contributing no new gap beyond what is already logged in the core glossary and term registry.

This document does not re-derive risk tiers already fixed in assets/bible_term_registry.json (Numbers extension); it analyzes why the available English vocabulary produces those tiers, so that Phase 2 content generation has an explicit rationale for each fencing/gloss/transliteration decision.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of this curriculum’s seven core doctrines, the table below lists the available English terms drawn from existing usage (baseline-reused or Numbers-new), the specific weaknesses of that vocabulary as currently constituted in English, and this curriculum’s recommended handling strategy.

1.1 Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
unbelief, disbelief, doubt, faithlessness	”Unbelief” and “disbelief” default to intellectual non-assent to a factual claim; “doubt” is often framed positively in contemporary devotional culture (“doubt your doubts,” faith-with-doubt spirituality) as a healthy, even virtuous stance, nearly inverting Numbers 14:11’s diagnosis of it as covenant treachery despite firsthand evidence.	Retain “unbelief” (baseline-consonant with “faith”) but pair every occurrence with an explicit gloss distinguishing willful covenant distrust after evidence from innocent uncertainty. Never substitute “doubt” as a synonym without this distinction stated.
the wilderness generation, “that generation,” the exodus generation	No ready-made English phrase for this technical category; “wilderness generation” is coined for this curriculum, not inherited from common speech, so it risks being read as a loose metaphor for “a hard season” rather than a fixed 40-year historical/legal category (20-and-older at the first census, 14:29).	Introduce as a defined technical phrase on first use (ch. 14) and re-anchor at every recurrence (26, 32) rather than assuming retained definition across chapters.
generation (general word)	Contemporary English “generation” (Gen Z, Baby Boomers, etc.) is a demographic-marketing category, not primarily a moral/theological one — risk of reading Numbers’ generational judgment through a sociological-cohort lens rather than a covenantal one.	When “generation” appears alone, prefer the fuller phrase “wilderness generation” or explicit re-anchoring rather than bare “generation.”

1.2 God’s Patience and Judgment

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
patience, longsuffering, slow to anger	”Patience” in therapeutic/self-help usage is largely a personal virtue of emotional regulation (“practice patience”), not necessarily relational forbearance toward covenant-breakers under real, deserved wrath; “longsuffering” is archaic (obsolescence).	Prefer “patience” with explicit relational framing (“God’s patience toward a rebellious people he had every right to destroy”) rather than a bare virtue-word; gloss “longsuffering” if retained for hymnic/traditional flavor.
judgment, wrath, plague	”Judgment” is heavily juridical/legal-system-coded in contemporary usage (a court’s judgment, “don’t judge me”); “wrath” survives mainly in hyperbolic/comic usage (“the wrath of the internet”) that trivializes it; “plague” (see glossary) is now epidemiologically coded post-pandemic.	Fence “judgment” against the courtroom-only reading by keeping God as the explicit personal subject; fence “plague” against naturalistic-disease framing by retaining explicit moral-cause language each time.
mercy, steadfast love (chesed), forgive	”Mercy” alone undersells the covenantal loyalty dimension of chesed; “forgive” risks the therapeutic self-benefit reframe noted in the glossary.	Pair patience-and-judgment teaching with “steadfast love” (chesed) as the positive counterweight, per 14:18’s own linkage, rather than treating patience and love as separate topics.

1.3 The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
serpent, snake	”Serpent” carries an almost automatic negative/Satanic charge (Genesis 3, Revelation 12:9) for biblically literate readers, while “snake” carries a purely secular negative charge (untrustworthy person, “snake in the grass”) for less biblically literate readers — both push toward reading God’s command as anomalous or ironic in a way that needs resolving, not smoothing over.	Explicitly name and resolve the tension: God commands an image of the very instrument of judgment to become the appointed means of life — teach this as deliberate, God-authored irony, not an inconsistency to be minimized.
type, symbol, foreshadow, picture, pattern	”Type” is the single highest-risk word in this doctrine (see ranked list, §4) — its ordinary senses (category/kind; romantic preference; font) have nothing to do with the technical hermeneutical sense; “symbol” undersells historicity (implies literary device, not a real event with real fulfillment); “foreshadow” and “picture” are safer plain-English substitutes but lose the technical vocabulary needed for cross-referencing 1 Corinthians 10:6, 11.	Use “type” only with an explicit, repeated technical definition (“a real historical Old Testament event or pattern that God intentionally designed to prefigure and be fulfilled in Christ”) — never as a bare label. “Foreshadow”/“pattern” may serve as plain-English glosses alongside it, not replacements for it.
lifted up, raised up	Stable, low-risk; the main task is connecting Numbers 21:9’s “set on a pole” to John 3:14’s “lifted up,” which uses the same verb intentionally.	Retain and cross-reference explicitly; this is a genuine linguistic asset, not a gap.

1.4 Intercession (Moses, Aaron, Phinehas)

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
intercession, pray/prayer, plead, mediate	Contemporary default frame for “intercession” is exclusively verbal petitionary prayer (“praying for someone”); this flattens Numbers’ three structurally distinct patterns — Moses’ verbal pleading, Aaron’s priestly incense-ritual, Phinehas’ non-verbal decisive action — into one undifferentiated category.	Do not use “intercession” as an unqualified umbrella term without naming which of the three patterns is active in a given passage; teach the three patterns side by side at least once in this curriculum’s core content.
mediator, go-between	”Mediator” is available and accurate but is now heavily coded in labor/legal contexts (contract mediation, divorce mediation) — a professional, neutral, third-party-negotiation frame quite different from Moses’ or Aaron’s personally invested, covenant-embedded pleading.	Use sparingly, with explicit distinction from professional/legal mediation; prefer “intercessor” for the biblical role.
zeal, righteous action	Phinehas’ intercession is action, not speech, and “zeal” (see §1.7-adjacent risk in glossary) is itself high-risk; describing his act plainly (“decisive action that stopped the plague”) before naming it “intercession” avoids compounding two high-risk terms in the same sentence.	Sequence explanation: describe the act plainly first, then supply the technical terms (“zeal,” “intercession”) with their required clarifications attached separately.

1.5 Faithfulness of God’s Promises despite Human Failure

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
faithfulness, providence, God keeps his word	”Providence” (baseline Critical) is archaic/proper-noun-collided (Providence, RI); “faithfulness” alone is stable but generic unless tied to a specific promise being kept.	Prefer “God’s faithfulness to his promises” as the working phrase over bare “providence,” reserving “providence” for contexts explicitly connecting to the baseline Romans 8:28 doctrine; always name the specific promise in view (land, descendants, Davidic line).
“everything happens for a reason”	Popular secular substitute; sounds adjacent to Numbers 23:19 but implies an impersonal cosmic balancing mechanism, not a personal God bound by his own character to keep specific covenant promises.	Explicitly distinguish from this idiom every time 23:19 is taught, per the baseline’s own established handling of “providence.”
truth, reliability, dependability	”Truth” in contemporary epistemically-anxious culture (“your truth,” “my truth,” relativized usage) risks being read as subjective/perspectival rather than the text’s sense of objective, covenant-binding reliability (emet).	Prefer “reliability/faithfulness” over unqualified “truth” when rendering emet in 23:19, to avoid the relativizing drift of contemporary “truth” usage.

1.6 Census and the People of God

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
census, count, number, roll call	”Census” imports contemporary bureaucratic/tax-roll and national-government connotations (a census bureau, population statistics) that can strip out the sense of God personally commanding and claiming his people tribe by tribe for war-readiness and worship-order, not tax administration.	Retain “census” as the most recognizable English label but immediately re-anchor with “commanded directly by God” and “organized by tribe around his dwelling place,” not merely a demographic exercise.
congregation, assembly, community, people of God	”Congregation” now primarily denotes a local church’s regular attendees (a voluntary, comparatively small religious gathering), a scale and category mismatch with edah’s entire covenant nation. “Assembly” is safer but generic (any gathered group, e.g. a school assembly). “Church” (baseline Critical) should not be used at all for edah, since it specifically renders NT ekklesia and imports New Testament, Spirit-indwelt, post-Pentecost content anachronistically.	Use “congregation” with an explicit scale-correction gloss (“the entire covenant nation, not a single local gathering”) on first substantive use; never substitute “church” for edah.
2 Samuel 24 census-danger association	Not a vocabulary item but a folk-theological inference readers may import (“counting people is spiritually risky”) — a genuine comprehension gap, since Numbers 1 and 26’s censuses are God-commanded and blessed, while 2 Samuel 24’s is a different narrative with a different (prideful) motive.	Address directly and briefly wherever Numbers’ census material is taught, to prevent readers from importing an unwarranted general principle.

1.7 Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing

Available English terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
prophet, prophecy, oracle, seer, diviner	”Oracle” collides with Oracle Corporation and “the Oracle of Omaha” (Warren Buffett) — confident-forecaster/insider-information senses with zero divine-agency content; “seer/diviner” risk being read through a New-Age fortune-telling lens; “prophet” is comparatively the safest available term (baseline Low) but still needs the specific point made that Balaam is a pagan diviner overridden by the true God, not a normal prophet of Israel.	Prefer “prophecy/oracle” only with the Corporation/Buffett association explicitly and briefly set aside; lead with “a message from the true God, spoken through a reluctant and unlikely pagan mouth” as the framing sentence before using the technical term.
blessing, curse, “#blessed”	Both “bless” and “curse” are trivialized in casual/social-media usage (profanity-adjacent “cursing”; ironic or sincere-but-shallow “#blessed” captioning); the text’s sense is a solemn, quasi-legal pronouncement with real (if creaturely and overridable) spiritual weight.	Explicitly name the trivialized contemporary usage and set it aside before teaching Balaam’s professional curse-for-hire practice and its powerlessness against God’s prior blessing.
sovereignty, sovereign choice, override	”Sovereignty” is comparatively stable in English theological usage (low internal risk) but is politically coded in a different sense (national sovereignty, sovereign states) that could create unintended cross-talk in a study context that also touches Israel/geopolitics elsewhere in the curriculum (see baseline’s own “Israel” note).	Use “God’s sovereign control” with the political-sovereignty sense briefly distinguished, consistent with the baseline’s existing caution about “Israel” and contemporary geopolitics.
messiah, star, scepter	Baseline “Messiah” (Critical) fully applies at 24:17; “star” and “scepter” are stable images but require Old Testament royal/astronomical background supplied, since neither carries automatic messianic content for a reader without that background.	Reuse baseline “Messiah” handling exactly; supply brief royal/astral background for “star… scepter” rather than assuming it self-evidently reads as messianic.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

Two distinct kinds of gap recur across this curriculum and require different fixes.

2.1 Missing vocabulary (no adequate single English word exists)

These are cases where English simply lacks a term with the right semantic footprint, requiring a compound phrase or paraphrase rather than a single-word fix:

• chesed (“steadfast love”) — no single English word captures both the loyalty/covenant-fidelity dimension and the warmth/love dimension simultaneously. “Mercy” loses the loyalty; “love” loses the steadfastness; “lovingkindness” (a word literally coined to solve this exact gap) now reads as archaic. Recommended: retain “steadfast love” as the working compound, explicitly flagged as an approximation on first use.
• edah (“congregation”) vs. ekklesia (“church”) — English “congregation” has drifted down in scale to mean a local church’s attendees; there is no single remaining English word for “the entire covenant nation as a worshipping, organized whole.” Recommended: retain “congregation” but attach a scale-correcting gloss every time, per §1.6.
• matteh/shevet (tribe = staff/rod wordplay) — English has no single word spanning both “tribal identity” and “rod of authority.” Recommended: surface the wordplay as background information rather than attempt a single-word rendering; note its resurfacing in Aaron’s staff (ch. 17) and the “scepter” oracle (24:17).
• qorban (offering, “that which is brought near”) — English “offering/sacrifice” lacks the root sense of drawing near to God; the relational, approach-oriented dimension is invisible in the English word alone. Recommended: state the root meaning explicitly at least once (“offering” as an act of drawing near to God, not merely giving something up).

2.2 Crowded semantic neighborhoods (too many competing senses attached to one available word)

These are cases where English has a word, but it is already occupied by strong, unrelated, higher-frequency senses that must be actively fenced off:

• “Lord” / “LORD” — occupied by British aristocratic titles, fantasy-fiction usage (baseline), and now further complicated within this curriculum by the LORD/Lord typographic distinction (personal name YHWH vs. title Adonai) that most readers have never been taught even exists in their own Bibles.
• “election” — almost totally occupied by political-voting usage (baseline); this curriculum adds a second neighbor collision, since Aaron’s priestly line is confirmed by a sign (budding staff, ch. 17) with zero human voting involved, making the political-vote frame doubly wrong here.
• “standard” / “pole” — internally crowded within this curriculum’s own vocabulary: degel (tribal banner, ch. 2) and nes (the bronze-serpent pole, 21:8-9) are both sometimes rendered “standard” in English Bible tradition, risking readers conflating two distinct Hebrew referents.
• “type” — occupied by category/kind, romantic preference, and font senses (see §1.3); this is a false-friend on the same order as the baseline’s “justification.”
• “oracle” — occupied by Oracle Corporation and “the Oracle of Omaha” (see §1.7).
• “avenger” — occupied almost entirely, for a large share of contemporary readers, by the Marvel “Avengers” franchise (a pop-culture collision comparable to the baseline’s “Abba”/ABBA).
• “zealous/zeal” — occupied by religious/political-extremism and violence associations (the historical Zealot faction and its modern echo).
• “census” — occupied by government/tax-administration bureaucratic associations.
• “unfaithfulness” — occupied almost exclusively by romantic/sexual infidelity.
• “leprosy” — occupied by the narrower modern clinical category (Hansen’s disease).
• “idols” — occupied by secularized talent-show usage (“American Idol”).
• “sign” — occupied by vague New-Age omen-reading and literal roadside signage.
• “plague” — occupied by post-pandemic epidemiological/public-health framing.

The general principle for this curriculum: missing-vocabulary gaps are solved by supplying a compound phrase or explicit paraphrase; crowded-neighborhood gaps are solved by explicit fencing — naming the competing sense and setting it aside before teaching the biblical sense — never by silent word-choice alone.

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Because destination = source = English, “transliteration” here concerns whether to retain a Hebrew-derived loanword/technical term (as English Bible tradition already does for many) versus fully paraphrasing into plain descriptive English. Decisions below apply consistently across all Phase 2 content.

Term	Decision	Rationale
Nazirite	Transliterate, always with explicit paraphrase attached (“a person under a special vow of consecration… not to be confused with Nazarene”)	The transliterated technical term is necessary to prevent the Nazirite/Nazarene collision from going unaddressed; a pure paraphrase alone (“consecrated person”) would lose the specific word readers need to recognize and correctly distinguish.
manna	Transliterate (already fully naturalized in English)	No paraphrase needed; risk is the diluted secular idiom (“manna from heaven” = generic windfall), addressed by re-anchoring to God’s personal, daily provision, not by avoiding the word.
tabernacle	Transliterate/retain with plain-English gloss (“the portable tent-sanctuary…”) attached on first use per document	Fully replacing with “tent-sanctuary” throughout would lose continuity with the wider English Bible tradition and cross-references; retaining the traditional word with a gloss is preferred.
chesed	Paraphrase (“steadfast love”), not transliterate	Unlike Abba (baseline), which is preserved untranslated precisely because Paul himself preserves the Aramaic, chesed is not preserved untranslated in the source text tradition Numbers belongs to; a compound English paraphrase is the standard and preferred solution, flagged as an approximation.
edah	Paraphrase (“congregation,” with scale-correcting gloss), not transliterate	Transliterating “edah” would introduce an unfamiliar loanword with no existing foothold in English Bible tradition; better to repair the existing English word “congregation” with an explicit gloss than coin a new transliteration.
qorban	Paraphrase (“offering”), not transliterate	No existing English-tradition foothold for the transliteration; plain paraphrase with root-meaning note (§2.1) is sufficient.
nes / degel	Paraphrase, not transliterate (“pole” for nes, “banner” for degel), explicitly distinguished from each other	Transliterating either would add unfamiliar vocabulary without solving the actual risk, which is internal confusion between the two referents; the fix is lexical differentiation in English, not foreignization.
go’el ha-dam (avenger of blood)	Retain existing English Bible-tradition phrase (“avenger of blood”), not replaced with a euphemism, but always paired with explicit Marvel-association fencing	Softening to avoid the Marvel collision (e.g. “blood redeemer,” “kinsman-avenger”) would break continuity with the wide existing English Bible translation tradition’s own established phrase; better to keep the traditional phrase and actively fence the pop-culture collision than invent a new, less recognizable substitute.
qin’ah (zeal)	Retain existing English word (“zeal”), not paraphrased away, but always paired with explicit scope-limiting clarification	As with “avenger of blood,” the existing English Bible-tradition word is too well established (and too directly needed for cross-reference to other biblical “zeal” passages) to abandon; the fix is explicit scope-fencing (a uniquely credited, judicially-situated act, not a general endorsement), not word substitution.
mashiach oracle language (“star… scepter”)	Retain literal images, paraphrase supplies background	The images themselves (star, scepter) should not be replaced with an interpretive gloss like “the coming king,” which would erase the text’s own oracular, poetic form; instead supply royal/astral background as separate explanatory material alongside the literal rendering.

General rule for this curriculum: transliteration/retention of the traditional English-Bible term is preferred wherever (a) an existing, recognizable English Bible-tradition rendering already exists and (b) the risk is a competing external association that can be fenced rather than an internal deficiency in the word itself. Paraphrase is preferred wherever (a) no such tradition-anchored rendering exists or (b) the available English word’s own core meaning (not merely an external association) is mismatched to the Hebrew concept’s scope.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity of (i) confidence of misreading, (ii) doctrinal centrality to this curriculum’s seven doctrines, and (iii) the core passage’s dependence on the term.

1. “type” / typology — Critical. Core-passage-dependent (the entire doctrinal payoff of Numbers 21:4-9 depends on readers correctly grasping this technical sense); ordinary usage has nothing to do with the biblical sense at all. Highest-priority fencing requirement in the whole curriculum.
2. bronze serpent — Critical. Core-passage term; the Genesis 3/Revelation 12:9 serpent-as-evil association is strong enough to make God’s own command feel contradictory unless the deliberate irony is explicitly taught.
3. unbelief — Critical. Governs an entire doctrine (Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation) and the core passage’s narrative background (21:5); ordinary usage flattens willful covenant treachery into innocent intellectual doubt, a doubt contemporary devotional culture often treats as virtuous.
4. LORD (YHWH) vs. Lord (Adonai) — Critical. Nearly no contemporary reader has been taught this typographic/theological distinction exists; the core passage’s own force (21:7’s “the LORD our God”) depends on recognizing that the one who sent judgment and the one petitioned for mercy are the same personal-named God.
5. election (priestly, ch. 3, 17) — Critical carryover from baseline, doubly reinforced here since Aaron’s confirmation is by unilateral sign, not vote — the political-vote false-friend is especially misleading in this specific narrative.
6. oracle — High. Balaam material (chs. 23-24) is this curriculum’s primary vehicle for the Messiah/sovereign-blessing doctrines; Oracle Corporation/“Oracle of Omaha” associations are ubiquitous in contemporary media and easy to import unconsciously.
7. avenger of blood — High. Marvel-franchise collision is close to universal among younger readers; without explicit fencing, ch. 35’s careful legal system reads as an action-movie reference.
8. zeal (Phinehas, ch. 25) — High. Real-world misapplication risk (individual religious violence) makes this the single item on this list requiring the most conservative, theologian-supervised framing language, not just a definitional gloss.
9. wilderness generation — High. Not a phrase readers already possess; risks collapsing into a vague “hard season” metaphor unless actively re-anchored at every recurrence (chs. 14, 26, 32).
10. congregation vs. church — High. Scale mismatch (local-church attendees vs. entire covenant nation) risks readers importing New Testament ekklesia content anachronistically into edah, or conversely under-scaling edah into something resembling a single local gathering.
11. look and live — High. Directly determines whether the core passage’s typological payoff (John 3:14-15) lands as an act of trust or is misread as magical/superstitious mechanism.
12. degel / nes (“standard/pole”) — Medium-High. An internally-generated risk unique to this curriculum: two distinct Hebrew referents both traditionally rendered “standard” in English, creating self-inflicted ambiguity if not explicitly differentiated within the same course of study.
13. census — Medium. Bureaucratic-association risk compounded by the unwarranted 2 Samuel 24 folk-inference; addressed but not doctrinally central enough to outrank items above.
14. Nazirite / Nazarene — Medium-High for the specific collision, though confined to a single chapter (6) with limited cross-curriculum doctrinal weight relative to items 1-11.
15. chesed / “steadfast love” — Medium. A genuine missing-vocabulary gap (§2.1) rather than a crowded-neighborhood false-friend, and therefore lower confidence-of-misreading than the false-friend items above, even though the concept is doctrinally important (God’s Patience and Judgment; Faithfulness of God’s Promises).

Items 1–11 require human theologian review on every occurrence per the escalation logic already established in doctrine_risk_registry.json’s routing conventions; items 12–15 require native-speaker review at minimum, with theologian review recommended wherever they co-occur with a Critical item above (e.g., “standard/pole” co-occurring with “bronze serpent” and “type” in the core passage itself).

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5. Full-Book Chapter Coverage Confirmation

Every chapter of Numbers has been reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary gaps. Chapters contributing new gap material beyond the term registry are cross-referenced above; chapters below are confirmed reviewed with no additional gap beyond what is already logged.

Chapters	Status
1–2	Reviewed. Census, tribe, banner (degel), tabernacle-camp-order vocabulary logged (§1.6, §2.2).
3–4	Reviewed. Election (Levites), redemption of the firstborn, service/ministry (avodah) logged.
5	Reviewed. Unfaithfulness (ma’al), guilt offering, clean/unclean logged.
6	Reviewed. Nazirite/Nazarene collision, vow logged.
7	Reviewed. Offering (qorban) vocabulary logged under ch. 15/18 entry; no additional new gap beyond §2.1.
8	Reviewed. No new gap beyond holy/sanctification vocabulary already logged under baseline reuse.
9–10	Reviewed. Cloud/glory-presence, appointed feasts (mo’adim, cross-referenced at ch. 28-29) logged.
11	Reviewed. Rebellion/grumbling, manna, Spirit (temporary empowering) logged; intercession (Moses, first pattern) logged.
12	Reviewed. Leprosy, meek/humble logged.
13	Reviewed. Spies (stable, low risk) logged.
14	Reviewed. Unbelief, wilderness generation, steadfast love, forgive/pardon, intercession (Moses, second instance) — this curriculum’s single highest-density chapter for doctrinal vocabulary; fully covered in §1.1, §1.2, §1.4, §1.5.
15	Reviewed. Offering/guilt offering vocabulary confirmed, no additional new gap.
16	Reviewed. Rebellion/grumbling (Korah), intercession (Aaron, second pattern), plague vocabulary logged.
17	Reviewed. Election/sign (Aaron’s staff), tribe/staff wordplay logged.
18	Reviewed. Tithe, guilt offering, redemption vocabulary confirmed.
19	Reviewed. Clean/unclean, purification vocabulary logged.
20	Reviewed. Unbelief (Moses at Meribah), holy (20:12’s pairing of holiness and belief) logged — core doctrinal chapter for Unbelief and God’s Patience and Judgment.
21	Core passage chapter (21:4-9). Fully covered across all sections above: bronze serpent, type/typology, pole/standard (nes), look-and-live, wilderness, manna, sin/confession, intercession (Moses, third instance), LORD (YHWH). Highest-density chapter in this analysis.
22–24	Reviewed. Balaam doctrine fully covered: oracle, prophet/prophecy, curse/bless, angel of the LORD, Messiah (star/scepter), providence/faithfulness (23:19) — see §1.7.
25	Reviewed. Zeal, intercession (Phinehas, third pattern), plague, covenant of peace logged — core chapter for Intercession doctrine’s third pattern.
26	Reviewed. Census (second instance), wilderness generation (re-anchoring point) logged; no new terms beyond ch. 1/14 entries.
27	Reviewed. Inheritance (land), laying on of hands logged.
28–29	Reviewed. Appointed times/feasts (mo’adim) logged.
30	Reviewed. Vow vocabulary confirmed, no additional new gap.
31	Reviewed. Clean/unclean (purification after battle) confirmed, no additional new gap.
32	Reviewed. Wilderness generation (third re-anchoring point), inheritance (land) confirmed.
33	Reviewed. Idols vocabulary logged.
34	Reviewed. Inheritance (land boundaries) confirmed, no additional new gap.
35	Reviewed. Cities of refuge, avenger of blood logged — high-priority pop-culture collision item.
36	Reviewed. Inheritance (land, daughters of Zelophehad) confirmed, no additional new gap beyond ch. 27/34 entries.

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6. Summary for Phase 2 Handoff

• Highest-priority fencing targets for Phase 2 content generation, in order: type/typology, bronze serpent, unbelief, LORD/Lord distinction, election, oracle, avenger of blood, zeal, wilderness generation, congregation-vs-church, look-and-live.
• Missing-vocabulary items requiring compound-phrase paraphrase rather than single-word fixes: chesed (steadfast love), edah (congregation, scale-corrected), matteh/shevet (tribe/staff wordplay), qorban (offering, root-meaning noted).
• Internal (curriculum-caused, not culture-caused) ambiguity requiring active differentiation: degel vs. nes, both traditionally rendered “standard.”
• All decisions above extend, and do not contradict, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json, and are fully consistent with the Numbers-specific extensions already recorded in 08_core_glossary.md and the Numbers bible_term_registry.json entries.