Numbers 32:13

13 And the Lord was very angry with Israel; and for forty years he caused them to wander in the wilderness, until all the generation which did evil in the sight of the Lord was extinct.

Numbers 32:13 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 32:13

And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel
For murmuring against the report of the spies:

and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years;
for though it was but about thirty eight years from that time that they were in the wilderness, the round number of forty is given; and besides it includes the time of their first coming into it, which being reckoned, makes the complete number, within a few months: Kadesh, from whence the spies were sent, and whither they returned, and where the people murmured, and had this sentence pronounced on them, that they should not see the land of Canaan, but wander and fall in the wilderness, seems to have had the addition of Barnea made unto it on that account, which signifies the son of him that wandereth:

until all the generation which had done evil in the sight of the Lord
was consumed;
as they all were at this time when Moses spake these words.

Numbers 32:13 In-Context

11 Surely these men who came up out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward, who know good and evil, shall not see the land which I sware to Abraam and Isaac and Jacob, for they have not closely followed after me:

12 save Caleb the son of Jephonne, who was set apart, and Joshua the son of Naue, for they closely followed after the Lord.

13 And the Lord was very angry with Israel; and for forty years he caused them to wander in the wilderness, until all the generation which did evil in the sight of the Lord was extinct.

14 Behold, ye are risen up in the room of your fathers, a combination of sinful men, to increase yet farther the fierce wrath of the Lord against Israel.

15 For ye will turn away from him to desert him yet once more in the wilderness, and ye will sin against this whole congregation.

Footnotes

• [a]. before.