Numbers 14:31-41

31 But your little ones, of whom ye said they should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land that ye have despised.

32 And as to you, your carcases shall fall in this wilderness.

33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

34 After the number of the days in which ye have searched out the land, forty days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities forty years, and ye shall know mine estrangement [from you].

35 I Jehovah have spoken; I will surely do it unto all this evil assembly which have gathered together against me! in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

36 And the men whom Moses had sent to search out the land, who returned, and made the whole assembly to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report upon the land,

37 even those men who had brought up an evil report upon the land, died by a plague before Jehovah.

38 But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, lived still of the men that had gone to search out the land.

39 And Moses told all these sayings to all the children of Israel; then the people mourned greatly.

40 And they rose up early in the morning, and went up to the hill-top, saying, Here are we, and we will go up to the place of which Jehovah has spoken; for we have sinned.

41 And Moses said, Why now do ye transgress the commandment of Jehovah? but it shall not prosper!

Numbers 14:31-41 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. 'feed,' as 1Sam. 25.16.