Numbers 14:39

39 And when Moses put these words before the children of Israel, the people were full of grief.

Numbers 14:39 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:39

And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel,
&c.] That all that had murmured, who were of twenty years old and upwards, should die in the wilderness, and never see nor enter into the land of Canaan, on the borders of which they now were: and the people mourned greatly;
because of their unhappy case, that they should be cut off by death in the wilderness, and be deprived of the enjoyment of the good land; their sorrow seems to have been not a godly sorrow, or true repentance for sin committed, but a worldly sorrow that works death; it was not on account of the evil of sin, the pardon of which they did not seem to seek after, but on account of the evil that was likely to come to them by it.

Numbers 14:39 In-Context

37 Those same men who said evil of the land, came to their death by disease before the Lord.

38 But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, of those who went to see the land, were not touched by disease.

39 And when Moses put these words before the children of Israel, the people were full of grief.

40 And early in the morning they got up and went to the top of the mountain, saying, We are here and we will go up to the place which the Lord said he would give us: for we have done wrong.

41 And Moses said, Why are you now acting against the Lord's order, seeing that no good will come of it?