Numbers 14:20-35

God’s Forgiveness and Judgment

20 “I have pardoned them as you requested,” the LORD replied. ¹

21 “Yet as surely as I live and as surely as the whole earth is filled with the glory of the LORD,

22 not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—

23 not one will ever see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will see it.

24 But because My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he has entered, and his descendants will inherit it.

25 Now since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea. ^[a]”

26 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,

27 “How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.

28 So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.

29 Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.

30 Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

31 But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.

32 As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.

33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

34 In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.

35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this entire wicked congregation, which has conspired against Me. They will meet their end in the wilderness, and there they will die.”

Numbers 14:20-35 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.

Cross References

• 1. (Deuteronomy 1:34–40)

Footnotes

• [a] Or the Sea of Reeds