Numbers 14:33-43

33 'Your sons shall be shepherds for ¹forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.

34 'According to the ²number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know My opposition.

35 '³I, the LORD, have spoken, surely * this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they will die.' "

36 ⁴As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land,

37 even ⁵those men who brought out the very bad report of the land died by a ⁶plague before the LORD.

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

Israel Repulsed

39 When Moses spoke ⁷these words to all the sons of Israel, ⁸the people mourned greatly.

40 In the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, "⁹Here we are; we have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place which the LORD has promised."

41 But Moses said, "¹⁰Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the LORD, when it will not succeed?

42 "¹¹Do not go up, or you will be struck down before your enemies, for the LORD is not among you.

43 "For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch * * as you have turned back from following the LORD. And the LORD will not be with you."

Read Chapter Compare

Numbers 14:33-43 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 11

1. Deuteronomy 2:7; Deuteronomy 8:2, 4; Deuteronomy 29:5
2. Numbers 13:25
3. Numbers 23:19
4. Num 13:4-16, 32
5. 1 Corinthians 10:10; Hebrews 3:17, 18
6. Numbers 16:49
7. Numbers 14:28-35
8. Exodus 33:4
9. Deuteronomy 1:41-44
10. 2 Chronicles 24:20
11. Deuteronomy 1:42

Footnotes 7

[a]. Lit "bear"
[b]. Lit "fornications"
[c]. Lit "are finished"
[d]. Or "iniquities"
[e]. Or "top of the mountain"
[f]. Or "and we will go up...for we have sinned"
[g]. Lit "mouth"