Numbers 14:29-39

29 ¹your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and ²of all your number, listed in the census ³from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me,

30 not one shall come into the land where I ⁴swore that I would make you dwell, ⁵except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

31 ⁶But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that ⁷you have rejected.

32 But as for you, ⁸your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

33 And your children ⁹shall be shepherds in the wilderness ¹⁰forty years and shall ¹¹suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.

34 ¹²According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, ¹³forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.'

35 ¹⁴I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all ¹⁵this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die."

36 ¹⁶And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land--

37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land--¹⁷died by plague before the LORD.

38 Of those men who went to spy out the land, ¹⁸only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

Israel Defeated in Battle

39 When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people ¹⁹mourned greatly.

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Numbers 14:29-39 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.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 19

1. 1 Corinthians 10:5; Hebrews 3:17
2. Numbers 1:45; Numbers 26:64; Deuteronomy 1:35
3. Numbers 1:3; Exodus 30:14
4. See Genesis 14:22
5. ver. 6, 38; See Numbers 13:6
6. ver. 3; Deuteronomy 1:39
7. Psalms 106:24
8. [See ver. 29 above]
9. Numbers 32:13; [Psalms 107:40]
10. Psalms 95:10; [Deuteronomy 2:14]
11. Ezekiel 23:35
12. Numbers 13:25
13. [Ezekiel 4:6]
14. Numbers 23:19
15. ver. 27
16. Numbers 13:32
17. 1 Corinthians 10:10; Hebrews 3:17; Jude 5
18. Numbers 26:65; See Numbers 13:16
19. Exodus 33:4

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.