Numbers 14:1

The People Complain

1 Then all the community {lifted up their voices}, and the people wept during that night.

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 community {lifted up their voices}, and the people wept during that night.
2 And all the {Israelites} grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and all the community said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt or in this desert!
3 Why did Yahweh bring us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little children will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return [to] Egypt?"
4 {They said to each other}, "Let us appoint a leader, and we will return [to] Egypt."
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces {before} the assembly of the community of the {Israelites}.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Hebrew "they lifted up and gave their voice"
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.