Numbers 14:1

1 Then all the people gave load cries of grief, and all that night they gave themselves up to weeping.

Numbers 14:1 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:1

And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried
This is not to be understood of every individual in the congregation of Israel, but of the princes, heads, and elders of the people that were with Moses and Aaron when the report of the spies was made; though indeed the report might quickly spread throughout the body of the people, and occasion a general outcry, which was very loud and clamorous, and attended with all the signs of distress imaginable, in shrieks and tears and lamentations:

and the people wept that night:
perhaps throughout the night; could get no sleep nor rest all the night, but spent it in weeping and crying, at the thought of their condition and circumstances, and the disappointments they had met with, as they conceived, of entering into and possessing the land.

Numbers 14:1 In-Context

1 Then all the people gave load cries of grief, and all that night they gave themselves up to weeping.

2 And all the children of Israel, crying out against Moses and Aaron, said, If only we had come to our death in the land of Egypt, or even in this waste land!

3 Why is the Lord taking us into this land to come to our death by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will get into strange hands: would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?

4 And they said to one another, Let us make a captain over us, and go back to Egypt.

5 Then Moses and Aaron went down on their faces before the meeting of the people.