Numbers 14:33

33 and your children will be shepherds in the desert for forty years. They will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies fall in the desert.

Numbers 14:33 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:33

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years,
&c.] Or "feed" ^F2, as shepherds, who go from place to place, and seek fresh pasture for their sheep; it being the custom of a shepherd, as Aben Ezra observes, not to stand or rest in a place; and so like sheep grazing in a wilderness, where they have short commons, and wander about in search, of better. These forty years are to be reckoned from their coming out of Egypt, from whence they had now been come about a year and a half: and bear your whoredoms;
the punishment of their idolatries, which are frequently signified by this phrase, and particularly of the idolatry of the calf, which God threatened to punish whenever he visited for sin, ( Exodus 32:34 ) ; and of other sins, as their murmurings for it was on account of them their children wandered so long in the wilderness, and were kept out of the possession of the land of Canaan: until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness;
everyone of them be consumed by death, save those before excepted, ( Numbers 14:30 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 (Myer wyhy) "erunt pascentes", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius, Junius & Tremellius; "pascent", Tigurine version, Piscator.

Numbers 14:33 In-Context

31 But your children, whom you said would be taken by force, I'll bring them in and they will know the land that you rejected.

32 Your bodies, however, will fall in this desert,

33 and your children will be shepherds in the desert for forty years. They will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies fall in the desert.

34 For as many days as you explored the land, that is, forty days, just as many years you'll bear your guilt, that is, forty years. This is how you will understand my frustration."

35 I the LORD have spoken. I will do this to the entire wicked community who gathered against me. They will die in this desert. There they'll meet their end.