Numbers 14:27

27 "How long [will I bear] this evil community who are grumbling against me? I have heard the grumbling of the {Israelites} which {they are making} against me.

Numbers 14:27 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:27

How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which
murmur against me?
&c.] Bear with their murmurings, spare them, and not cut them off? how long must sparing mercy be extended to them? the Lord speaks as one weary of forbearing, so frequent and aggravated were their murmurings. The Jews understand this not of the whole congregation of Israel, but of the ten spies, from whence they gather, that ten make a congregation; and they interpret the phrase, "which murmur against me", transitively, "which cause to murmur against me"; made the children of Israel murmur against him, so Jarchi; but rather all the people are meant, as appears from ( Numbers 14:28 ) , and from the following clause:

I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they
murmur against me;
for their murmurings were not only against Moses and Aaron, but against the Lord himself, ( Numbers 14:2 Numbers 14:3 ) .

Numbers 14:27 In-Context

25 And the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; tomorrow turn and set out [for] the desert [by] way of the {Red Sea}."

26 And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,

27 "How long [will I bear] this evil community who are grumbling against me? I have heard the grumbling of the {Israelites} which {they are making} against me.

28 Say to them, 'Surely as I live,' {declares} Yahweh, 'just as you spoke {in my hearing}, so I will do to you;

29 in this desert your corpses will fall, and all your counted ones, according to all your number, from {twenty years old} and above who grumbled against me.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "sons/children of Israel"
• [b]. Literally "they are grumbling"