Numbers 14:26-37

26 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:
27 “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.
28 So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say:
29 In this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.
30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
31 As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.
32 But as for you, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.
33 Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.
34 For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’
35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this wilderness; here they will die.”
36 So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—
37 these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD.

Numbers 14:26-37 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 14

This chapter treats or the murmurings of the children of Israel upon the evil report of the spies, which greatly distressed Moses and Aaron, Nu 14:1-5; and of the endeavours of Joshua and Caleb to quiet the minds of the people with a good account of the land, and of the easy conquest of it, but to no purpose, Nu 14:6-10; and of the Lord's threatening to destroy the people with the pestilence, Nu 14:11,12; and of the intercession of Moses for them, which so far succeeded as to prevent their immediate destruction, Nu 14:13-20; nevertheless they are assured again and again, in the strongest terms, that none of them but Joshua and Caleb should enter into the land, but their carcasses should fall in the wilderness, even all the murmurers of twenty years old and upwards, Nu 14:21-35; and the ten men that brought the evil report of the good land died of a plague immediately, but the other two lived, Nu 14:36-38; and the body of the people that attempted to go up the mountain and enter the land were smitten and discomfited by their enemies, after they had with concern heard what the Lord threatened them with, Nu 14:39-45.

Cross References 22

  • 1. Exodus 16:12; Deuteronomy 1:34,35
  • 2. S ver 21
  • 3. Numbers 33:56
  • 4. ver 23,30,32; Numbers 26:65; Numbers 32:13; 1 Corinthians 10:5; Hebrews 3:17; Jude 1:5
  • 5. S Numbers 1:45
  • 6. S Exodus 30:12
  • 7. S ver 29
  • 8. Exodus 6:8; Deuteronomy 32:40; Nehemiah 9:15; Psalms 106:26; Ezekiel 20:5; Ezekiel 36:7
  • 9. Numbers 13:6
  • 10. Numbers 11:28
  • 11. S Leviticus 26:43; Psalms 106:24
  • 12. S ver 29,35; 1 Corinthians 10:5
  • 13. ver 34; S Exodus 16:35; Acts 13:18; Hebrews 3:9
  • 14. S ver 33
  • 15. Numbers 13:25
  • 16. Numbers 23:19
  • 17. S ver 32
  • 18. Numbers 13:4-16
  • 19. ver 2
  • 20. S Numbers 13:32
  • 21. S Numbers 13:32; 1 Corinthians 10:10; Hebrews 3:17
  • 22. Numbers 16:49; Numbers 5:9; Numbers 26:1; Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 4:3
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