Deuteronomy 1:39

39 "Your little children that you said would be captured, who do not know right from wrong at this time, will go into the land. I will give the land to them, and they will take it for their own.

Deuteronomy 1:39 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 1:39

Moreover, your little ones, which ye said should be a prey,
&c.] To the Amorites, into whose hands they expected to be delivered, ( Deuteronomy 1:27 ) see ( Numbers 14:3 )

and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and
evil;
not being at years of understanding, and which is a common description of children; it is particularly expressed "in that day", for now they were the very persons Moses was directing his speech unto, and relating this history, it being thirty eight years ago when this affair was, so that now they were grown up to years of discretion:

they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall
possess it:
the relation of which now might serve greatly to encourage their faith, as well as it would be a fulfilment of the promise of the land made unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which was not made of none effect through the unbelief of the Israelites, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, since their posterity was to enjoy it, and did.

Deuteronomy 1:39 In-Context

37 Because of you, the Lord was also angry with me and said, "You won't enter the land either,

38 but your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to take the land for their own.

39 "Your little children that you said would be captured, who do not know right from wrong at this time, will go into the land. I will give the land to them, and they will take it for their own.

40 But you must turn around and follow the desert road toward the Red Sea."

41 Then you said to me, "We have sinned against the Lord, but now we will go up and fight, as the Lord our God commanded us." Then all of you put on weapons, thinking it would be easy to go into the mountains.