Numbers 14:33

33 And your sons shall be fed in the wilderness forty years, and they shall bear your fornication, until your carcases be consumed in the wilderness.

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 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

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

Numbers 14:33 In-Context

31 And your little ones, who ye said should be a prey, them will I bring into the land; and they shall inherit the land, which ye rejected.
32 And your carcases shall fall in this wilderness.
33 And your sons shall be fed in the wilderness forty years, and they shall bear your fornication, until your carcases be consumed in the wilderness.
34 According to the number of the days during which ye spied the land, forty days, a day for a year, ye shall bear your sins forty years, and ye shall know my fierce anger.
35 I the Lord have spoken, Surely will I do thus to this evil congregation that has risen up together against me: in this wilderness they shall be utterly consumed, and there they shall die.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.