Numbers 14:33-43

33 and your sons are evil in the wilderness forty years, and have borne your whoredoms till your carcases are consumed in the wilderness;

34 by the number of the days [in] which ye spied the land, forty days, -- a day for a year, a day for a year -- ye do bear your iniquities, forty years, and ye have known my breaking off;

35 I [am] Jehovah, I have spoken; if I do not this to all this evil company who are meeting against me; -- in this wilderness they are consumed, and there they die.'

36 And the men whom Moses hath sent to spy the land, and they turn back and cause all the company to murmur against him, by bringing out an evil account concerning the land,

37 even the men bringing out an evil account of the land die by the plague before Jehovah;

38 and Joshua son of Nun, and Caleb son of Jephunneh, have lived of those men who go to spy out the land.

39 And Moses speaketh these words unto all the sons of Israel, and the people mourn exceedingly,

40 and they rise early in the morning, and go up unto the top of the mountain, saying, `Here we [are], and we have come up unto the place which Jehovah hath spoken of, for we have sinned.'

41 And Moses saith, `Why [is] this? -- ye are transgressing the command of Jehovah, and it doth not prosper;

42 go not up, for Jehovah is not in your midst, and ye are not smitten before your enemies;

43 for the Amalekite and the Canaanite [are] there before you, and ye have fallen by the sword, because that ye have turned back from after Jehovah, and Jehovah is not with you.'

Numbers 14:33-43 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.