Numbers 14:34

34 You will bear the consequences of your sins 40 years based on the number of the 40 days that you scouted the land, a year for each day.^{[a] [b]} You will know My displeasure.^[c]

Numbers 14:34 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:34

After the number of days in which ye searched the land,
[even] forty days
For so long they were searching it, ( Numbers 13:25 ) ; each day for a year;
reckoning each day for a year, forty days for forty years, as in ( Ezekiel 4:6 ) ; shall ye bear your iniquities, [even] forty years:
which number is given, being a round one, otherwise it was but thirty eight years and a half ere they were all cut off, and their children entered the land: and ye shall know my breach of promise;
God never makes any breach of promise; his covenant he will not break, nor alter what is gone out of his lips; men break their promises, and transgress the covenant they have made with him, but he never breaks his, ( Psalms 89:34 ) ; this should rather be rendered only, "ye shall know my breach"; experience a breach made upon them by him, upon their persons and families by consuming them in the wilderness: the Targum of Jonathan is,

``and ye shall know what ye have murmured against me;''

this same word is used in the plural in ( Job 33:10 ) , and is by the Targum rendered "murmurings" or "complaints"; and so the sense is, ye shall know by sad experience the evil of complaining and murmuring against me. The Vulgate Latin version is,

``ye shall know my vengeance;''

and so the Septuagint,

``ye shall know the fury of my anger''

which give the sense, though not a literal version of the words.

Numbers 14:34 In-Context

32 But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.

33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for 40 years and bear the penalty for your acts of unfaithfulness until all your corpses lie [scattered] in the wilderness.

34 You will bear the consequences of your sins 40 years based on the number of the 40 days that you scouted the land, a year for each day. You will know My displeasure.

35 I, the Lord, have spoken. I swear that I will do this to the entire evil community that has conspired against Me. They will come to an end in the wilderness, and there they will die."

36 So the men Moses sent to scout out the land, and who returned and incited the entire community to complain about him by spreading a bad report about the land-

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit a day for the year, a day for the year
• [b]. Nm 13:25; 32:13; Dt 2:14; Ps 95:10; Ezk 4:6
• [c]. Or My opposition