Numbers 14:8-18

8 If the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us. This is a land flowing with milk and honey!

9 Don't rebel against the LORD, and don't be afraid of the people of the land. We will devour them like bread. They have no protection, and the LORD is with us. So don't be afraid of them."

10 But when the whole community of Israel talked about stoning Moses and Aaron to death, they all saw the glory of the LORD [shining] at the tent of meeting.

11 The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to trust me in spite of all the miraculous signs I have done among them?

12 I'll strike them with a plague, I'll destroy them, and I'll make you into a nation larger and stronger than they are."

13 But Moses said to the LORD, "What if the Egyptians hear about it? (You used your power to take these people away from them.)

14 What if the Egyptians tell the people who live in this land? LORD, they have already heard that you are with these people, that they have seen you with their own eyes, that your column of smoke stays over them, and that you go ahead of them in a column of smoke by day and in a column of fire by night.

15 But if you kill all these people at the same time, then the nations who have heard these reports about you will say,

16 'The LORD wasn't able to bring these people into the land he promised them, so he slaughtered them in the desert.'

17 "Lord, let your power be as great as when you said,

18 'The LORD...patient, forever loving....He forgives wrongdoing and disobedience....He never lets the guilty go unpunished, punishing children...for their parents' sins to the third and fourth generation....'

Numbers 14:8-18 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.