Core Glossary
Numbers — Core Glossary (English → French)
A. Terms Reused Exactly from the Romans Baseline
| Term (EN) | French Rendering | Hebrew / Transliteration | Risk (Baseline) | Doctrine Link (Numbers) | Chapters | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | Dieu | אֱלֹהִים / Elohim | Medium | God’s Patience and Judgment; Faithfulness of God’s Promises | Throughout | Reuse exactly; no change. |
| grace / gracious favor | grâce / faire grâce | חֵן, חנן / chen, chanan | High | Priestly Blessing (ch.6) | 6 | OT root of the baseline’s NT term; do not conflate with chesed (see Part B). |
| faith / believe | foi / croire | אמן / aman | Medium | Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation | 14, 20 | Verb form “croire” must share the same root family as noun “foi” for pedagogical continuity. |
| holy / sanctify | saint / sanctifier | קדש / qadash | Medium | Separation unto God’s Service; ch.20 (Moses’ failure to “sanctify” God before the people) | 5, 6, 8, 20 | Reuse exactly. |
| sin | péché | חטא / chata | Medium | Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation; core passage v.7 | 5, 14, 15, 21 (core) | Guard against colloquial trivialization, per baseline note. |
| covenant | alliance | ברית / berit | Medium | Faithfulness of God’s Promises; ch.18 (Levites), ch.25 (Phinehas’ covenant) | 18, 25 | Reuse exactly. |
| glory | gloire | כבוד / kavod | Medium | God’s Patience and Judgment | 14, 16, 20 | Reuse exactly. |
| Israel | Israël | ישראל / Yisra’el | Medium | Census and the People of God; Balaam narrative | Throughout | Reuse exactly. |
| Holy Spirit / Spirit | Esprit (Saint) | רוח / ruach | Medium | (background to Spiritual Gifts doctrine cluster) | 11, 24, 27 | Flag OT task-specific empowerment vs. NT permanent indwelling distinction in teaching notes. |
| law | loi (la Loi) | תורה, מצוה / torah, mitzvah | High | Underlies all legal chapters | 5, 6, 15, 18-19, 28-30, 35 | Capitalize “la Loi” for Mosaic legislation, per baseline convention. |
| intercession | intercession | פלל, כפר / palal, kipper (partial overlap) | Medium (elevated to High in Numbers — see Part B) | Intercession (Moses, Aaron, Phinehas) | Core passage, 14, 16, 25 | See Part B for the elevated risk rationale specific to Numbers. |
| election / chosen | élection | בחר (implicit) | High | Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing (background) | 23 | Used lightly; Numbers’ primary election-adjacent language is barak/arar (Part B), not a direct cognate of Romans’ eklogē. |
B. New Terms Established for the Numbers Language Package
| Term (EN) | French Rendering | Hebrew / Transliteration | LXX / NT Greek Echo | Risk | Doctrine Link | Chapters | Rationale / Collision Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YHWH / “the LORD” (Tetragrammaton) | le SEIGNEUR (small caps; alt. “l’Éternel” in Segond-aligned material) | יהוה / YHWH | κύριος (LXX) | Critical | God’s Patience and Judgment; core passage v.6 | Throughout | New decision required beyond the Romans baseline’s NT-only “Seigneur” (=kyrios) entry. Recommend “le SEIGNEUR” for TOB/BJ-register consistency; flag the deliberate root continuity with the baseline’s Christological “Seigneur” for teaching purposes. |
| census / to number | recensement / recenser | פקד / paqad | ἀριθμέω (LXX) | Medium | Census and the People of God | 1-4, 26 | French “recensement” is bureaucratically flat; must be paired with teaching on God numbering his people by name. |
| congregation (standing community) | communauté | עדה / edah | συναγωγή (LXX) | Medium | Census and the People of God | 1, 13-14, 16, 20, 27 | Do not conflate with NT “l’Église” (baseline High-risk term) or with qahal below. |
| assembly (convened gathering) | assemblée | קהל / qahal | ἐκκλησία (LXX — same Greek word later used for NT “church”) | High | Korah’s Rebellion | 16 | LXX’s use of ἐκκλησία here is a genuine terminological bridge to the NT church term; flag for advanced teaching material, but keep the OT narrative use distinct from NT ecclesiology in basic curriculum text. |
| tribe / rod (wordplay) | tribu / bâton | שבט, מטה / shevet, matteh | φυλή / ῥάβδος (LXX) | Low-Medium | Census and the People of God | 1, 17, 26, 32, 34, 36 | Wordplay (rod=tribe) untranslatable in French; footnote recommended at ch.17. |
| ransom / redemption price | rançon / prix du rachat | פדיון, כפר / pidyon, kopher | λύτρον (LXX/NT echo) | High | (background to atonement typology) | 3 | Avoid secular-criminal “rançon” connotation eclipsing the sacred sense; connects forward to redemption-in-Christ without collapsing OT/NT stages. |
| jealousy / zeal (single root, dual sense) | jalousie (ch.5) / zèle (ch.25) | קנאה / qin’ah | ζῆλος (LXX/NT echo) | Medium-High | Jealousy Offering (ch.5); Phinehas’ Zeal (ch.25, under Intercession doctrine) | 5, 25 | Same Hebrew root rendered by two different French words by context; cross-reference required so the connection is not lost. |
| Nazirite vow | naziréen / vœu de naziréen | נזיר, נדר / nazir, neder | εὔχομαι-related (LXX) | High | Separation unto God’s Service (extension) | 6, 30 | French “vœu” collides with Catholic monastic-vow connotation; clarify temporary, lay-available nature of the Nazirite vow. |
| priesthood (Aaronic office) | sacerdoce | כהונה / kehunah | ἱερωσύνη (LXX) | Medium-High | (background to Intercession doctrine) | 3, 8, 18 | Contrast with baseline’s “appel”/“vocation” caution: here “vocation sacerdotale” is contextually correct, unlike the Romans general-believer calling. |
| inheritance / possession | héritage | נחלה / nachalah | κληρονομία (LXX/NT echo) | Medium | Census and the People of God; Faithfulness of God’s Promises | 18, 26, 27, 32, 34, 36 | Keep consistent across all occurrences; theologically rich forward-link to NT “inheritance in Christ” (not itself an NT term here). |
| atonement / to atone | expiation / expier / faire l’expiation | כפר / kipper | ἐξιλάσκομαι, ἱλασμός (LXX/NT echo) | High (Critical-adjacent) | Intercession (Aaron, ch.16; Phinehas, ch.25); background to Bronze Serpent typology | 16, 25 | New term absent from Romans baseline (which treats NT “justification”/“propitiation” without this specific OT cultic term); recommend theologian review given direct connection to Christ’s atoning work. |
| bronze serpent | serpent de bronze | נחש נחשת / nechash nechoshet | ὄφιν χαλκοῦν (LXX); cf. ὄφις in John 3:14 | Critical | The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ | Core passage (21:8-9) | Avoid archaic “serpent d’airain” (Segond 1910). MUST be taught alongside the 2 Kings 18:4 destruction-as-idol warning to prevent relic/statue-veneration misreading — direct parallel collision to the baseline’s “saints” entry. |
| pole / standard / sign | perche / étendard / signe | נס / nes | σημεῖον (LXX); cf. σημεῖον in John’s Gospel | High | The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ | Core passage (21:8-9) | “Perche” is the natural French rendering but loses the “sign” resonance carried by LXX σημεῖον, which is the exact word John’s Gospel uses for Jesus’ “signs” — flag for footnoted typological cross-reference. |
| to look (simple) / to gaze intently | regarder / fixer son regard, regarder attentivement | ראה / הביט / ra’ah / hibbit | βλέπω / ἐμβλέπω (LXX distinction) | High | The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ | Core passage (21:8 vs. 21:9) | Two distinct Hebrew verbs must not be flattened into one French verb — the intensification (instruction → enacted faith) is exegetically significant. |
| slow to anger / patience | lent à la colère | ארך אפים / erek appayim | μακρόθυμος (LXX/NT echo) | Medium | God’s Patience and Judgment | 14 | Established biblical French idiom; keep as fixed phrase. |
| covenant loyalty / lovingkindness | bonté / fidélité (NEVER “grâce”) | חסד / chesed | ἔλεος (LXX, sometimes) | High | God’s Patience and Judgment; Faithfulness of God’s Promises | 14 | CRITICAL COLLISION FLAG: must not be rendered “grâce,” which the baseline reserves for NT charis. Keeping chesed and charis terminologically distinct in French preserves an important OT/NT theological distinction. |
| presumptuous / willful sin | avec présomption / délibérément | בזדון / zadon | ἐν ὑπερηφανίᾳ-type (LXX, varies) | High | Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation | 15 | Must not be softened into a synonym of ordinary “péché”; denotes defiant contempt, distinct moral category from unintentional sin. |
| devoted to destruction / holy-war ban | vouer à la destruction / anéantissement total | חרם / cherem | ἀνάθεμα / ἐξολεθρεύω (LXX) | High | (background to God’s Patience and Judgment; historical narrative in ch.21) | 21, 31, 33 | Requires historically-bounded framing to prevent misapplication to contemporary religious-violence discourse; recommend theologian review for any teaching unit engaging this term. |
| divination / diviner | divination / devin | קסם / qesem, qosem | μαντεία (LXX) | High | Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing | 22-24 | Must be framed as condemned pagan practice overruled by God’s sovereignty, not romanticized, given the visibility of occult subculture in contemporary France. |
| to bless / to curse | bénir / maudire | ברך / ארר / barak / arar | εὐλογέω / καταράομαι (LXX/NT echo) | High | Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing | 22-24 | Must counter French folk-belief currency around “malédiction” (evil eye, family curses); frame as God’s unilateral sovereignty, not manipulable spiritual force. |
| angel of the LORD | l’ange de l’Éternel / du SEIGNEUR | מלאך יהוה / mal’ak YHWH | ἄγγελος κυρίου (LXX/NT echo) | Medium | Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing | 22 | Keep terminologically distinct from generic “un ange.” |
| harlotry / covenant unfaithfulness (fused sense) | se prostituer / s’adonner à l’idolâtrie | זנה / zanah | πορνεύω (LXX/NT echo) | Medium-High | (background to Faithfulness doctrine, contrastively) | 25 | Must retain fused sexual-and-cultic sense; neither purely moralistic nor purely cultic rendering suffices alone. |
| vengeance / retribution | vengeance | נקם / naqam | ἐκδίκησις (LXX/NT echo) | High | (background to God’s Patience and Judgment) | 31 | Frame as a specific, bounded divine-judicial act, not a general ethic of retaliation. |
| red heifer | vache rousse | פרה אדמה / parah adumah | δάμαλις πυρρά (LXX) | Medium | (background to Bronze Serpent / atonement typology cluster) | 19 | Requires explanatory framing against a “primitive superstition” secular misreading. |
| cities of refuge | villes de refuge | ערי מקלט / arei miqlat | πόλεις φυγαδευτήρια (LXX) | Medium-High | (background to Faithfulness/mercy-justice balance) | 35 | Frame institutionally; typological Christ-as-refuge teaching may follow but must not replace the text’s own judicial logic. |
| avenger of blood | vengeur du sang | גאל הדם / go’el hadam | ὁ ἀγχιστεύων τὸ αἷμα (LXX) | High | (background to justice/mercy balance) | 35 | French “vengeur” carries vigilante connotation (cf. “les Vengeurs”); clarify this is an ordered, legally-limited role. |
| unintentional sin / error | péché par erreur / involontaire | שגגה / shegagah | ἀκουσίως (LXX) | Medium | Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation (contrastive) | 15, 35 | Keep distinct from zadon (presumptuous sin) above. |
| tassels / fringes | franges / glands | ציצת / tsitsit | κράσπεδα (LXX/NT echo) | Low | Separation unto God’s Service (extension) | 15 | Established rendering; low ambiguity. |
| Passover | la Pâque | פסח / pesach | πάσχα (LXX/NT) | Low | Faithfulness of God’s Promises (background) | 9 | Distinguish orthographically from “Pâques” (Easter) — proofreading note only. |
| manna | manne | מן / man | μάννα (LXX/NT) | Low | (background to Unbelief doctrine, ch.11 and core passage) | 11, 21 | Established loanword. |
| leprosy / skin disease | lèpre | צרעת / tsara’at | λέπρα (LXX) | Medium | (background to Intercession/Moses’ unique authority) | 12 | Modern French “lèpre” denotes the specific modern disease; OT category is broader (ritual impurity marker). |
| tithe | dîme | מעשר / ma’aser | δεκάτη (LXX) | Low | (background to priesthood provision) | 18 | Established term. |
| idols | idoles | גלולים / gillulim | εἴδωλα (LXX) | Medium | (background to Faithfulness/covenant exclusivity) | 33 | French term is neutral; Hebrew original carries built-in contempt not reproducible in French. |
| firstborn / ransom of the firstborn | premier-né / rachat du premier-né | בכור / bekhor | πρωτότοκος (LXX/NT echo) | Medium | (background to atonement typology) | 3 | Connects forward to NT “firstborn” Christological language (Colossians 1:15) — flag as a positive typological bridge, not a risk per se. |
C. Cross-Cutting Risk Notes for Phase 2 Preparation
- Critical-tier terms requiring mandatory theologian review in every occurrence: serpent de bronze (bronze serpent), le SEIGNEUR (Tetragrammaton rendering decision).
- High-tier terms requiring theologian review due to French cultural-collision risk: chesed (must never render as “grâce”), cherem, divination/devin, bénir/maudire (Balaam), vengeur du sang, naqam (vengeance), zèle (Phinehas), perche/signe (pole typology), regarder vs. fixer son regard (the two verbs of sight), expiation (atonement), pidyon/rançon (ransom), naziréen (Nazirite vow), sacerdoce (priesthood — note the reversed “vocation” nuance vs. the Romans baseline).
- Medium-tier terms requiring native speaker review: recensement, communauté/assemblée distinction, héritage, vache rousse, villes de refuge, lèpre, idoles, se prostituer/idolâtrie (fused sense), bekhor/premier-né typological bridge.
- Positive terminological bridges to flag for curriculum coherence (not risks, but pedagogically valuable continuities): chanan/chen → “grâce” (ch.6 priestly blessing directly anchors the Romans baseline’s “grâce” term in OT soil); bekhor → NT “firstborn” Christology; nachalah → NT “inheritance in Christ”; LXX sēmeion (nes) → John’s Gospel “signs” vocabulary.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: Dieu
Transliteration: Elohim
Doctrine: God’s Patience and Judgment / Faithfulness of God’s Promises
Original: אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package (rendering unchanged: ‘Dieu’). RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to Critical for this curriculum: in the census, wilderness-rebellion, and Balaam narratives, ‘Dieu’ must remain the personal covenant God who both provides and judges, not an abstract organizing principle behind Israel’s national identity or a deist first-cause the secular French reader may default to.
Intercession
Approved rendering: intercession / intercéder
Transliteration: palal / hitpallel
Doctrine: Intercession (Moses, Aaron, Phinehas)
Rejected alternatives: plaider la cause de (used only as a supplementary paraphrase, never a substitute)
Original: פָּלַל / הִתְפַּלֵּל
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to CRITICAL for this curriculum. Numbers supplies three vivid, NAMED human-intercessor case studies (Moses 14:13-19 and 21:7; Aaron 16:46-48; Phinehas 25:7-13), giving unusual concrete traction to conflation with the French Catholic devotional practice of ‘intercession des saints’. Every occurrence applied to these three figures must carry an explicit redemptive-historical qualifier distinguishing it from ongoing petition to departed holy figures and pointing to Christ’s superior, once-for-all intercession (Hebrews 7:25).
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Esprit (Saint)
Transliteration: ruach
Doctrine: Spirit-Empowered Leadership (background to Spiritual Gifts doctrine cluster)
Original: רוּחַ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to CRITICAL for this curriculum. Numbers 11 (seventy elders) and Numbers 24 (Balaam’s oracle) describe TEMPORARY, TASK-SPECIFIC empowerment, not the NT’s permanent indwelling. Teaching notes must mark this OT/NT discontinuity explicitly so students do not flatten these episodes into a Pentecost-equivalent event — the elevation reflects the acute risk of that flattening, not a change in the underlying French rendering.
Yhwh Lord
Approved rendering: le SEIGNEUR
Transliteration: YHWH
Doctrine: God’s Patience and Judgment; core passage Numbers 21:6-7
Rejected alternatives: Yahvé (unconventional in mainstream ecumenical French Bible register), Jéhovah (avoid: strong sectarian association with the Traduction du Monde Nouveau / Témoins de Jéhovah)
Original: יהוה
Category: God
NEW decision beyond the Romans baseline’s NT-only ‘Seigneur’ (=kyrios) entry. Render ‘le SEIGNEUR’ (small caps, TOB/Bible de Jérusalem register) as the primary curriculum rendering; ‘l’Éternel’ acceptable in Segond-aligned material. Deliberately shares the root ‘Seigneur’ with the baseline’s NT Christological confession (Romans 10:9) — a positive theological bridge that MUST be made explicit in teaching notes. Must be applied with absolute consistency across all Phase 2 workers.
Atonement
Approved rendering: expiation
Transliteration: kipper
Doctrine: Atonement and the Sacrificial System
Original: כִּפֶּר
Category: Atonement
The priestly ritual action that turns away real divine wrath and restores standing before God, exercised by Aaron (16:46-48) and Phinehas (25:13). Absent from the Romans baseline (which addresses NT justification/propitiation without this specific OT cultic term). Must retain the sense of a priestly action turning away real wrath, not a merely psychological ‘making peace’; must be carefully distinguished from Catholic penitential/indulgence categories of personal ‘expiation’, which carry different theological freight.
Bronze Serpent
Approved rendering: serpent de bronze
Transliteration: nechash nechoshet
Doctrine: The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ
Rejected alternatives: serpent d’airain (archaic Segond 1910 register, avoid)
Original: נְחַשׁ נְחֹשֶׁת
Category: Christology
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:8-9). Genuine French-Catholic-culture collision point directly parallel to the baseline’s ‘saints’ entry: a physical object made at God’s command later became venerated in its own right (Nehushtan, 2 Kings 18:4, destroyed by Hezekiah). Teaching material MUST state plainly that the bronze object itself had no inherent power and must not be presented in a way that could reinforce relic- or statue-veneration reading. The saving action was always the believing look, appointed by God’s word (John 3:14-15).
High Risk Terms
Grace
Approved rendering: grâce
Transliteration: chen / chanan (OT root); charis (NT)
Doctrine: Priestly Blessing (OT root of Grace)
Rejected alternatives: faveur, mérite
Original: חֵן / חנן
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: High). POSITIVE BRIDGE: Numbers 6:25’s priestly blessing (‘qu’il te fasse grâce’) is the OT root of the concept the Romans baseline fixes as grâce for NT charis — flag for curriculum coherence. Risk: Catholic sacramental framing (grace mediated through ritual) must be avoided here exactly as in Romans; this is direct divine favor pronounced by the priest’s word, not grace dispensed through mechanism. CRITICAL COMPANION RULE: chesed (see covenant_loyalty below) must NEVER be rendered grâce.
Faith
Approved rendering: foi / croire
Transliteration: aman (Hebrew verb root)
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation
Rejected alternatives: croyance, religion, douter (softens covenant-treason force)
Original: אָמַן
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum because Numbers 14:11 (‘they will not believe/trust me’) is the book’s programmatic unbelief statement. The verb ‘croire’ must share the same root family as the baseline noun ‘foi’ so learners see the direct conceptual line from Numbers’ wilderness unbelief to Romans’ faith-versus-unbelief argument.
Holy
Approved rendering: saint / sanctifier
Transliteration: qadash
Doctrine: Separation unto God’s Service; God’s Patience and Judgment (Numbers 20:12)
Rejected alternatives: pur
Original: קָדַש
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum. Used of Moses’ failure to publicly ‘sanctify’ God’s character before the people (20:12) — must retain the sense of publicly honoring God’s holy character, not a private ritual act.
Saints
Approved rendering: saints
Transliteration: hagioi (NT); qedoshim (OT analogue, not a Numbers key term as such)
Doctrine: Separation unto God’s Service (Nazirite); Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: High). The baseline’s ‘les saints’ collision with canonized-intercessor devotion is REACTIVATED by the Nazirite (ch.6) and ‘sanctifier’ (ch.20) material in Numbers; reuse the baseline’s fencing convention (‘tous les croyants consacrés’) at every Numbers occurrence rather than assuming the Romans material alone has already handled it for this curriculum’s readers.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: qiddesh (Piel of qadash)
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: purification
Original: קדש (Piel forms)
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum. Used of the Levites’ consecration (ch.8) and the nation’s own consecration to service. Lower risk of ritual-purification confusion than in some other target languages, but must still be distinguished from mere ceremonial washing.
Sin
Approved rendering: péché
Transliteration: chata
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation; Intercession (core passage confession, 21:7)
Original: חָטָא
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum. Guard against colloquial French trivialization (‘péché mignon’) especially in the core passage’s confession (‘nous avons péché’, 21:7), where the full covenant-rebellion weight must be retained, not a minor indulgence.
Law
Approved rendering: loi (la Loi)
Transliteration: torah / mitzvah
Doctrine: underlies all Numbers legal chapters
Original: תּוֹרָה / מִצְוָה
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: High). Capitalize ‘la Loi’ for Mosaic legislation. Numbers’ legal chapters (5-6, 15, 18-19, 28-30, 35) supply the largest concentration of case law in this curriculum.
Glory
Approved rendering: gloire
Transliteration: kavod
Doctrine: God’s Patience and Judgment
Original: כָּבוֹד
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum. God’s manifest, weighty presence and honor filling the whole earth even as judgment falls on the unbelieving generation (14:21-22) — glory and judgment are two faces of the same holy presence. Secular ‘gloire’ (military/celebrity) must not eclipse God’s self-manifesting presence.
Covenant
Approved rendering: alliance
Transliteration: berit
Doctrine: Faithfulness of God’s Promises; Priesthood (ch.18); Intercession (Phinehas’ covenant, 25:12-13)
Rejected alternatives: contrat
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package; RISK ELEVATED from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum given the concentration of covenant material (Levitical covenant ch.18, Phinehas’ perpetual priestly covenant ch.25).
Election
Approved rendering: élection
Transliteration: bachar (implicit)
Doctrine: Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing (background)
Rejected alternatives: chance, destin
Original: בָּחַר (implicit)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: High). Used lightly in Numbers since the primary election-adjacent vocabulary here is ‘barak/arar’ (bless/curse), not a direct cognate of Romans’ eklogē. Must not be read through the lens of political ‘élection’ as a competitive process.
Lord
Approved rendering: Seigneur
Transliteration: kyrios (NT); root shared deliberately with ‘le SEIGNEUR’ below
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ (background continuity)
Rejected alternatives: maître, patron
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: High). Not directly textually present in Numbers (no NT confession scene), but retained here to anchor the deliberate root-continuity teaching point: ‘le SEIGNEUR’ (YHWH, new term below) and ‘Seigneur’ (NT kyrios) share the same French root, a bridge that must be made explicit in teaching notes, not left implicit.
Church
Approved rendering: Église
Transliteration: ekklesia (NT); LXX renders Hebrew qahal as ekklesia
Doctrine: Census and the People of God (contrastive)
Rejected alternatives: temple (building only)
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: High). Must be kept explicitly DISTINCT from Numbers’ ‘communauté’ (edah) and ‘assemblée’ (qahal) — this is a pre-Christian covenant nation, not the New Testament body of Christ. The LXX’s rendering of qahal as ekklesia is a genuine terminological bridge but must remain flagged for advanced teaching only, never collapsed in basic curriculum text.
Assembly
Approved rendering: assemblée
Transliteration: qahal
Doctrine: Priesthood and Mediatorial Office (Korah’s rebellion, ch.16)
Original: קָהָל
Category: Census
A specific convened gathering, used of Korah’s rival assembly against Moses and Aaron’s God-given authority. The LXX renders this word ekklesia — the same Greek word later used for the NT church — a genuine terminological bridge worth flagging for advanced teaching material only; basic curriculum text must keep Korah’s illegitimate rival gathering distinct from both ‘communauté’ (edah) and any NT ecclesiological sense.
Ransom
Approved rendering: rançon / prix du rachat
Transliteration: pidyon / kopher
Doctrine: Priesthood and Mediatorial Office (firstborn redemption, ch.3)
Original: פִּדְיוֹן / כֹּפֶר
Category: Priesthood
The substitutionary redemption price for Israel’s firstborn sons in place of consecration to tabernacle service. French ‘rançon’ carries a strong secular-criminal (kidnapping) connotation that can obscure the sacred, cultic sense; pair with ‘prix du rachat’ and sacred-cultic framing, connecting forward to redemption-in-Christ language without collapsing this OT stage into NT atonement vocabulary.
Zeal
Approved rendering: zèle
Transliteration: qin’ah
Doctrine: Intercession (Phinehas, ch.25)
Original: קִנְאָה
Category: Intercession
Righteous covenant zeal exercised by Phinehas in his decisive priestly-judicial action that stops the plague at Baal of Peor (25:11-13). Given contemporary sensitivity to religiously-motivated violence, requires careful, historically-bounded framing: a specific, divinely-sanctioned judicial action within Israel’s unique covenant-community legal structure, never a general endorsement of vigilante religious violence.
Nazirite Vow
Approved rendering: naziréen / vœu de naziréen
Transliteration: nazir / neder
Doctrine: Separation unto God’s Service (Nazirite Vow)
Rejected alternatives: consacré spécial temporaire (clumsier invented paraphrase, rejected in favor of transliteration + gloss)
Original: נָזִיר / נֶדֶר
Category: Sanctification
A voluntary, typically temporary vow of special consecration available to any Israelite layperson. French Catholic culture strongly associates religious ‘vœux’ with permanent monastic/religious-order commitment; teaching notes MUST clarify the Nazirite vow’s temporary, lay-available nature to prevent a ‘called to the priesthood’ misreading.
Priesthood
Approved rendering: sacerdoce
Transliteration: kehunah
Doctrine: Priesthood and Mediatorial Office
Original: כְּהֻנָּה
Category: Priesthood
The hereditary Aaronic priestly office and its transmission (chs.3, 8, 18), confirmed decisively by the budding rod (ch.17). NOTE THE REVERSED NUANCE versus the Romans baseline’s general-believer ‘appel’/‘vocation’ caution: here ‘vocation sacerdotale’ is CONTEXTUALLY CORRECT because the Aaronic priesthood genuinely IS a hereditary, exclusive office. Curriculum writers moving between Romans and Numbers material must not confuse the two distinct doctrines.
Pole Sign
Approved rendering: perche
Transliteration: nes
Doctrine: The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ
Rejected alternatives: étendard (secondary footnote reference only, not primary text rendering), signe (reserved for footnote bridge to LXX sēmeion, not primary rendering)
Original: נֵס
Category: Christology
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:8-9). The pole/standard on which the bronze serpent was set; same root family as a rallying military standard (Exodus 17:15) and rendered sēmeion (‘sign’) in the LXX — the exact word John’s Gospel uses for Jesus’ miracles. ‘Perche’ is the natural, established French rendering but loses this resonance; a footnote/teaching-note bridge to ‘signe’ is mandatory, not optional.
Look
Approved rendering: regarder
Transliteration: ra’ah
Doctrine: The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ
Original: רָאָה
Category: Faith
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:8, God’s instruction). The simple, ordinary act of looking commanded by God as the appointed means of healing. Must be kept lexically DISTINCT from v.9’s more intense verb (see gaze_intently below) — a flattened single French verb across both verses erases a deliberate narrative intensification directly relevant to ‘look and live’ gospel typology.
Gaze Intently
Approved rendering: fixer son regard sur
Transliteration: hibbit
Doctrine: The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ
Rejected alternatives: regarder attentivement (acceptable secondary phrasing)
Original: הִבִּיט
Category: Faith
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:9, the people’s enacted response). The people’s deliberate, fixed gaze at the bronze serpent — a stronger verb than v.8’s simple ‘look’. Must never be collapsed into the same French verb as ‘look’ above; the distinction (God’s instruction vs. the people’s enacted faith) is exegetically load-bearing.
Spoke Against
Approved rendering: parler contre
Transliteration: vayedabber be-
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation
Rejected alternatives: se plaindre à (wrongly domesticates covenant rebellion into mere grievance)
Original: וַיְדַבֵּר… בְּ
Category: Sin
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:5). Hostile speech against God and Moses, functionally covenant treason since speaking against God’s appointed mediator is speaking against God himself. Must retain hostile/rebellious force in every occurrence (chs.14, 16, 20, 21).
Fiery Serpents
Approved rendering: serpents brûlants
Transliteration: hannechashim hasseraphim
Doctrine: God’s Patience and Judgment; The Bronze Serpent as a Type of Christ
Rejected alternatives: serpents de feu (acceptable secondary phrasing)
Original: הַנְּחָשִׁים הַשְּׂרָפִים
Category: Judgment
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:6). The venomous, burning-bite serpents God sent as judgment; saraph (‘to burn’) shares a root with the seraphim of Isaiah 6 without identity of referent. French readers may wrongly connect ‘séraphins’ (the angelic order) to this term; a translator’s note should clarify the etymological link is coincidental and does not imply angelic beings.
Covenant Loyalty
Approved rendering: bonté / fidélité
Transliteration: chesed
Doctrine: God’s Patience and Judgment; Covenant Loyalty and Divine Character
Rejected alternatives: grâce (ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN — see notes)
Original: חֶסֶד
Category: God
CRITICAL COLLISION FLAG: chesed (covenant loyalty/lovingkindness) and NT Greek charis (unmerited favor, fixed by the baseline as ‘grâce’) are related but theologically DISTINCT categories. Rendering chesed as ‘grâce’ would collapse this OT covenant-loyalty term into the baseline’s reserved NT term, causing exactly the doctrinal flattening the baseline’s risk-tier discipline exists to prevent. This is the single most consequential OT/NT terminological fence in the whole book.
Presumptuous Sin
Approved rendering: avec présomption / délibérément, avec mépris
Transliteration: bezadon / zadon
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation
Rejected alternatives: péché (bare, without qualifier — rejected as too weak)
Original: בְּזָדוֹן / זָדוֹן
Category: Sin
Deliberate, defiant sin contemptuous of God’s authority (ch.15), distinguished from unintentional sin and ‘cut off’ from the covenant community with no sacrificial remedy. Must never be softened to a synonym of ordinary ‘péché’ — denotes defiant contempt for God, the precise category the wilderness generation repeatedly falls into.
Cherem
Approved rendering: vouer à la destruction / anéantissement total
Transliteration: cherem
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment on the Nations
Rejected alternatives: cherem (bare transliteration — rejected as opaque jargon for a lay French reader)
Original: חֵרֶם
Category: Judgment
A unique covenantal-judicial category of being irrevocably devoted to God for destruction, applied to the Canaanite cities in Israel’s vow (21:2-3; also chs.31, 33). Must be framed as belonging to a unique, closed historical-covenantal episode of divine judgment on specific nations at a specific redemptive-historical moment, never a general template for warfare or a timeless ethical norm; given contemporary French sensitivity to religiously-motivated violence.
Divination
Approved rendering: divination / devin
Transliteration: qesem / qosem
Doctrine: Divination and False Religion; Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing
Original: קֶסֶם / קֹסֵם
Category: Prophecy
The pagan practice of seeking hidden knowledge or manipulating spiritual power through ritual means, explicitly Balaam’s method (chs.22-24), elsewhere condemned in Torah. Contemporary France has an active occult/esoteric subculture (astrology, tarot, voyance) with significant cultural visibility; must be framed as condemned pagan practice contrasted with authentic prophecy, never romanticized.
Bless Curse
Approved rendering: bénir / maudire
Transliteration: barak / arar
Doctrine: Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing
Original: בָּרַךְ / אָרַר
Category: God
Invocation of divine favor or calamity; God declares Israel cannot be effectively cursed by any human or pagan-spiritual agent (23:8, 20). French folk-Catholic and secular culture retains real currency for ‘malédiction’ (evil eye, family curses, superstition); must be framed as demonstrating God’s unilateral sovereignty, never validating a folk-magical worldview of manipulable spiritual forces.
Harlotry Unfaithfulness
Approved rendering: se prostituer / s’adonner à l’idolâtrie
Transliteration: zanah
Doctrine: Sexual and Covenant Unfaithfulness
Rejected alternatives: se prostituer (alone, sex-only reading, rejected as incomplete), s’adonner à l’idolâtrie (alone, cultic-only reading, rejected as incomplete)
Original: זָנָה
Category: Sin
Sexual and religious unfaithfulness fused into a single act of covenant betrayal at Baal of Peor (ch.25). Must retain the fused sexual-and-religious sense; laïcité’s public/private compartmentalization risks a purely moralistic (sex-only) or purely cultic (idolatry-only) reading unless both dimensions are explicitly retained together.
Vengeance
Approved rendering: vengeance
Transliteration: naqam
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment on the Nations
Original: נָקָם
Category: Judgment
Judicial retribution, commanded by God against Midian for the Baal of Peor seduction (ch.31). Modern French ‘vengeance’ carries a strongly personal, retaliatory connotation; must be framed as God’s specific judicial action within a bounded historical episode, never a general endorsement of retaliatory violence.
Avenger Of Blood
Approved rendering: vengeur du sang
Transliteration: go’el hadam
Doctrine: Justice and Mercy in Community Life
Original: גֹּאֵל הַדָּם
Category: Justice
The victim’s kinsman with the legally limited right to execute a deliberate murderer, sharing a lexical root (‘ga’al’, redeem) with the kinsman-redeemer figure elsewhere in Scripture. Modern French ‘vengeur’ carries a vigilante/comic-book connotation (‘les Vengeurs’ = ‘the Avengers’); must be clarified as an ordered legal role within a God-given judicial system with real limits.
Medium Risk Terms
Israel
Approved rendering: Israël
Transliteration: Yisra’el
Doctrine: Census and the People of God; Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: Medium). Keep the referent historical/theological, distinct from the modern nation-state, per baseline convention — relevant across the census chapters and Balaam’s oracles alike.
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: pronoia (Greek equivalent; no single Hebrew term in Numbers)
Doctrine: Faithfulness of God’s Promises despite Human Failure
Rejected alternatives: destin, hasard
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: Medium). Numbers 23:19 (‘Dieu n’est point un homme pour mentir’) is the closest textual anchor; must render God’s faithful governance as personal and purposive, not a deist abstraction, consistent with the baseline’s Enlightenment-deism caution.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: dons spirituels
Transliteration: charismata (NT); ruach-empowerment (OT background, Numbers 11, 27)
Doctrine: Spirit-Empowered Leadership
Rejected alternatives: talents
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: Medium). The seventy elders’ Spirit-empowerment (ch.11) is OT background to this NT doctrine, not itself an instance of ‘charismata’ — keep the OT/NT discontinuity explicit.
Census
Approved rendering: recensement
Transliteration: paqad
Doctrine: Census and the People of God
Rejected alternatives: dénombrement (acceptable secondary/traditional-title register, introduced alongside, not instead of, ‘recensement’)
Original: פָּקַד
Category: Census
French ‘recensement’ carries a purely bureaucratic, state-administrative (INSEE) connotation that can strip the pastoral, covenantal sense of God numbering his people by name (cf. Isaiah 43:1); must always be paired with explicit teaching on that pastoral point.
Congregation
Approved rendering: communauté
Transliteration: edah
Doctrine: Census and the People of God
Original: עֵדָה
Category: Census
Israel’s standing corporate identity as God’s assembled people. Must not be conflated with NT ‘l’Église’ (baseline High-risk term, reserved for the NT covenant community) nor with the convened-gathering sense of ‘assemblée’ (qahal) below.
Firstborn
Approved rendering: premier-né
Transliteration: bekhor
Doctrine: Priesthood and Mediatorial Office (background to atonement typology)
Original: בְּכוֹר
Category: Priesthood
Positive typological bridge, not primarily a risk: connects forward to NT ‘firstborn’ Christology (Colossians 1:15) — worth flagging for curriculum coherence rather than treating purely as a risk item.
Jealousy
Approved rendering: jalousie
Transliteration: qin’ah
Doctrine: Ritual Purity and Defilement (ch.5 jealousy ordeal)
Original: קִנְאָה
Category: Sin
Suspicious marital jealousy underlying the ch.5 ordeal for a wife suspected of unfaithfulness. Same Hebrew root as ch.25’s righteous ‘zèle’ below — same root, two French words by moral valence; cross-reference required so the connection is not lost.
Vow
Approved rendering: vœu
Transliteration: neder
Doctrine: Vows and Covenant Faithfulness
Original: נֶדֶר
Category: Sanctification
A binding voluntary promise made to God (chs.6, 30), taken with utmost seriousness throughout Numbers. Same monastic-vow collision noted at ‘nazirite_vow’, here at the general level applying to all vow-making (including women’s vows, ch.30) rather than only the Nazirite case specifically.
Inheritance
Approved rendering: héritage
Transliteration: nachalah
Doctrine: Inheritance and the Promised Land
Original: נַחֲלָה
Category: Covenant
Landed or covenantal possession passed down within a family/tribe; the Levites’ unique inheritance is ‘the LORD himself’ (18:20) rather than land. Recurring through chs.18, 26, 27, 32, 34, 36 — keep consistent. Theologically rich forward-link to NT ‘inheritance in Christ’ language, though not itself an NT term here.
Impatience Of Soul
Approved rendering: perdre courage
Transliteration: vattiqtsar nephesh
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation
Rejected alternatives: fatigue (too weak; flattens moral/spiritual exasperation into mere physical tiredness)
Original: וַתִּקְצַר נֶפֶשׁ
Category: Sin
CORE PASSAGE TERM (21:4). Idiom for the people’s will-collapse and loss of endurance on the journey, the emotional-spiritual state producing the sin of v.5. Signals exasperation bordering on rebellion, matching the wilderness generation’s chronic pattern.
Slow To Anger
Approved rendering: lent à la colère
Transliteration: erek appayim
Doctrine: God’s Patience and Judgment
Original: אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
Category: God
God’s patience, invoked by Moses as grounds for sparing the nation after the spies’ rebellion (14:18), quoting Exodus 34:6-7’s covenant-character formula. Established biblical French idiom; keep as a fixed phrase.
Unintentional Sin
Approved rendering: péché involontaire / péché par erreur
Transliteration: shegagah
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation (contrastive); Justice and Mercy in Community Life
Original: שְׁגָגָה
Category: Sin
Sin committed without deliberate intent (ch.15), atonable by sacrifice, and the standard for unintentional homicide governing the cities of refuge (ch.35). Must be kept distinct from ‘zadon’ (presumptuous sin) above — the graduated-culpability principle distinguishes intent, not merely outcome.
Red Heifer
Approved rendering: vache rousse
Transliteration: parah adumah
Doctrine: Ritual Purity and Defilement
Original: פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה
Category: Cultic Practice
A specific unblemished female bovine used in a purification rite for those defiled by contact with death (ch.19). Established French rendering (Segond, TOB). The underlying purity-system logic — death defiles, requiring costly cleansing — is foreign to secular French readers and needs explanatory framing against a ‘primitive superstition’ reading; background typology for Hebrews 9:13-14.
Cities Of Refuge
Approved rendering: villes de refuge
Transliteration: arei miqlat
Doctrine: Justice and Mercy in Community Life
Original: עָרֵי מִקְלָט
Category: Justice
Designated cities offering legal protection to one who kills unintentionally, pending fair trial (ch.35). Must be framed institutionally (a God-ordained legal-mercy system), not merely as ancient ‘safe houses’; typological Christ-as-refuge teaching (Hebrews 6:18) may follow but the OT text must first be understood on its own judicial terms.
Leprosy
Approved rendering: lèpre
Transliteration: tsara’at
Doctrine: Intercession (background to Moses’ unique mediatorial authority, ch.12)
Original: צָרַעַת
Category: Judgment
A category of ritually-defiling skin conditions, not identical to modern Hansen’s disease, inflicted on Miriam for challenging Moses’ authority (ch.12). Modern French ‘lèpre’ denotes the specific modern disease; a footnote should clarify the OT category is broader, primarily a marker of ritual impurity.
Idols
Approved rendering: idoles
Transliteration: gillulim
Doctrine: Faithfulness of God’s Promises (covenant exclusivity, ch.33)
Original: גִּלּוּלִים
Category: Sin
A deliberately contemptuous Hebrew term for pagan cult images (possibly related to ‘dung-pellets’), commanded destroyed as Israel enters the land (33:52). The French term is neutral/standard and cannot reproduce the Hebrew’s built-in contempt; a footnote may note the pejorative force for advanced study material.
Angel Of The Lord
Approved rendering: l’ange de l’Éternel
Transliteration: mal’ak YHWH
Doctrine: Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing
Rejected alternatives: l’ange du SEIGNEUR (acceptable variant, aligned with the yhwh_lord primary rendering)
Original: מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה
Category: God
A visible, personal manifestation of divine authority and presence, blocking Balaam’s path (22:22-35). Kept terminologically distinct from generic ‘un ange’ to preserve the unique theophanic weight of the definite singular form.
Low Risk Terms
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophète
Transliteration: nabi
Doctrine: Divination and False Religion (contrastive); Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing
Rejected alternatives: voyant
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: Low). Relevant to the Balaam narrative’s genuinely ambiguous figure (a true oracle-bearer who also practices condemned divination) — must be kept lexically distinct from ‘devin’ (diviner), the term for Balaam’s illegitimate technique.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: prophétie
Transliteration: nevu’ah
Doctrine: Balaam and God’s Sovereign Blessing
Inherited from Romans package exactly (risk unchanged: Low). Balaam’s oracles (chs.23-24) are authentic, God-given prophecy despite Balaam’s own corrupt character and pagan technique — distinct from astrological or fortune-telling prediction.
Tribe
Approved rendering: tribu / bâton
Transliteration: shevet / matteh
Doctrine: Census and the People of God; Priesthood (Aaron’s rod, ch.17)
Original: שֵׁבֶט / מַטֶּה
Category: Census
Both Hebrew words for ‘tribe’ derive from words for a rod/staff (the tribal leader’s staff of authority stands for the tribe), resolved literally in Aaron’s budding rod (ch.17). The wordplay is untranslatable in French (‘tribu’/‘bâton’ are unrelated words); a footnote is recommended at ch.17.
Tassels
Approved rendering: franges
Transliteration: tsitsit
Doctrine: Separation unto God’s Service (extension)
Rejected alternatives: glands (acceptable secondary term)
Original: צִיצִת
Category: Sanctification
Cords/tassels worn on garment corners as a perpetual visual reminder of the commandments (ch.15). Established term in French Torah-related translation.
Passover
Approved rendering: la Pâque
Transliteration: pesach
Doctrine: Faithfulness of God’s Promises (background)
Original: פֶּסַח
Category: Covenant
The Exodus memorial feast, observed even in the wilderness (ch.9). No final ‘s’; distinguish orthographically from ‘Pâques’ (Easter, with s) — a proofreading note only, established shared Catholic/Protestant French term.
Manna
Approved rendering: manne
Transliteration: man
Doctrine: Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation (background); core passage 21:5
Original: מָן
Category: Providence
The miraculous bread-substance provided daily in the wilderness (ch.11), later contemptuously rejected by the people (21:5). Established loanword in French.
Tithe
Approved rendering: dîme
Transliteration: ma’aser
Doctrine: Priesthood and Mediatorial Office (provision, ch.18)
Original: מַעֲשֵׂר
Category: Priesthood
A tenth-part offering supporting Levitical service (ch.18). Established term; contemporary French financial-giving practices differ, a minor clarifying note only.
Wilderness
Approved rendering: désert
Transliteration: midbar
Doctrine: Census and the People of God (setting); Unbelief and the Wilderness Generation
Original: מִדְבָּר
Category: Census
The desert setting of the entire forty-year narrative, giving the book its Hebrew title (Bemidbar, ‘in the wilderness’). Established term; curriculum framing should note the wilderness functions theologically as a place of both testing and provision, not merely geography.
Referenced passages