Numberschapter 14
45 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
Numbers 14 is the turning point of the book, the night when a nation decided it would rather go back to Egypt. The record was kept for the children of that generation, who lived through the forty years that followed and heard it again at the edge of the land in Deuteronomy. Moses stands between a holy God and a people who have refused Him. Listen for the words he uses when he prays, since they are the words God had spoken about Himself at Sinai. Listen also for how the sentence is measured, and for what happens when the people try to undo it by their own strength.
Context
- Who
- The generation that had seen the plagues and the sea and then voted to go back
- What
- A narrative of the people's refusal to enter Canaan, Moses' prayer for them, and the sentence of forty years in the wilderness.
- Where
- The camp at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran, with the failed attack reaching the hill country as far as Hormah.
- When
- The second year after the Exodus, about 1445 BC on the traditional dating, which marks the start of the forty years.
- Why
- To show that God forgives and still judges, and that unbelief closed the land to a whole generation.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Moses, who at this point was the leader the camp proposed to replace. Verse 4 records the people saying to one another that they should appoint a leader and return to Egypt. Moses is the man who falls on his face before them at verse 5 and then argues for their lives at verses 13 to 19.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The time is the second year after the Exodus, immediately after the forty days of the scouting, and the place is Kadesh at the southern approach to Canaan.
Appointing a captain and going back meant choosing a rival head of state and reversing everything the previous two books had done. Nehemiah 9:17 looks back on this moment and says they appointed a captain to return to their bondage.
Gods in that world were judged by whether they could deliver what they had promised. A nation destroyed in the desert would be read by Egypt and Canaan as the failure of the God who brought it out. Moses argues on exactly that ground at verses 15 and 16, and then appeals to the character God had spoken over Himself at Exodus 34:6-7. The ark of the covenant went out before an army, and an attack made while the ark stayed in the camp was an attack made without the thing that made Israel’s army an army.
Significance
Israel learned that unbelief has a body count and a calendar, and that it can cost a generation an inheritance already signed over to them. The sentence was measured out of their own words, since they had wished to die in this wilderness and were told their bodies would fall in it. They also heard God's own self-description honoured in both its halves, the slowness to anger and the loving devotion on one side, and the guilt that is not cleared on the other. Both halves came true in the same chapter.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The refusal is read as the act of the nation's leadership rather than of a crowd. Rashi takes the whole congregation of the first verse to mean the Sanhedrin (Rashi on Numbers 14:1:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 12). The proposal to appoint a head carries two readings side by side. The Targum takes it as setting a king over themselves, and the rabbis take the word for idolatry, so that the people were turning to another worship (Rashi on Numbers 14:4:1, citing Sanhedrin 107a). Joshua and Caleb's appeal is read as a single condition with a single consequence. Israel has only to keep from rebelling, and the fear of the people of the land falls away (Rashi on Numbers 14:9:1). The stoning of the tenth verse is aimed at those two men (Rashi on Numbers 14:10:1). Sforno reads their words closely. He takes the search of the land to have covered both the country and its inhabitants, as Moses had instructed. He takes the condition if the Lord delights in us as the land's own terms, since its goodness turns on God's regard and its disobedience is answered quickly. He grounds it in Deuteronomy 11:12 and 13 (Sforno on Numbers 14:7:1 and 14:8:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash).
Moses' plea is read as an argument about God's name among the nations, and Rashi fills in the speech the nations would make. Egypt will hear how Israel was killed, and the peoples will say that God slaughtered them because He lacked the power to bring them in. Their words: "because the inhabitants of the land are strong and mighty; and besides, one king, Pharaoh, is not like thirty-one kings, who inhabit Canaan" (Rashi on Numbers 14:16:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 13). The prayer that God's strength be great is glossed as a plea that He keep to His own declared character (Rashi on Numbers 14:17:1). The verse Moses then quotes carries the chapter's best-known rabbinic scene. Rashi records that when Moses went up to receive the Law he found God writing that He is long-suffering, and asked whether that was meant for the righteous. God answered that it was meant for the wicked also, and Moses said that the wicked should perish. God told him he would one day need that very mercy, and at the calf and at the spies Moses prayed on the ground of it. When God recalled his earlier words, Moses answered from God's own, and asked that the strength of the Lord be great by God's declaration rather than his own (Rashi on Numbers 14:18:1, citing Sanhedrin 111a). The pardon that follows is tied to the argument that won it, since God forgives according to Moses' word, which was the word about what the nations would say (Rashi on Numbers 14:20:1). A Christian reader stands on common ground here and should mark it. The classical reading makes God's patience reach the guilty, and it makes the pardon rest on God's own character and name rather than on anything Israel brought.
Caleb's exemption is explained by a tradition about how he survived the mission at all. The other spirit of the twenty-fourth verse is read as two spirits, one in his mouth and one in his heart. He told the spies he was with them, while he intended all along to tell the truth. That concealment is what gave him the standing to quiet the people, since they expected him to speak as the others had. Rashi finds the hint in Caleb's own words at Joshua 14:7, that he brought back word as it was in his heart (Rashi on Numbers 14:24:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 10). That is the teaching of the rabbis, and this site reports it as theirs. The rest of Rashi's comments in the corpus are short glosses on the Hebrew. He gives the force of how long in the eleventh verse, the sense of driving out in the twelfth, and the abruptness of a death as one man in the fifteenth. He gives the plain sense of testing in the twenty-second, and reads the oath formula of the twenty-third as a flat denial that they will see the land. Ibn Ezra comments at 14:3:1, 14:5:1, 14:6:1 and 14:19:1. The corpus carries no English text for him under its licence, so he stands here cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here and never quoted. The Talmudic ones are nine. Arakhin 15 stands on the eleventh verse and Arakhin 15a:10 and 15a:13 on the twenty-second and the thirty-seventh, the tractate that gathers the law of the evil tongue. Beside them stand Bava Metzia 86b:15 on the fourteenth verse, Berakhot 32a:27 on the sixteenth, and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 43:18 on Caleb. Avot DeRabbi Natan 20:1 stands on the twenty-ninth and Bava Batra 118b:3 on the thirty-eighth. The last is the entry the corpus prints as Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, The Midrash attributed to Rabbi Ishmael's School to Deuteronomy 27, on the forty-first and forty-second.
The midrashic locators run to thirty-one. Bamidbar Rabbah carries thirteen, at 16:2, 16:7, 16:11, 16:20, 16:21, 16:23, 16:25, 16:26, 17:3, 18:6, 19:20, 19:21 and 21:10. Midrash Lekach Tov carries five, at Numbers 14:2:1, 14:3:1, 14:15:1, 14:28:1 and 14:39:1. Midrash Aggadah carries three, at Numbers 14:25:1, Leviticus 19:2:3 and Deuteronomy 1:41:2. Aggadat Bereshit carries three, at 36:1, 68:1 and 77:2. Devarim Rabbah stands twice, at 1:3 and 2:1, both on the plea and the pardon. Five more stand alone: Ein Yaakov, Taanit 1:47 in the Glick Edition, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 1:7, Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 3:17, Bereshit Rabbah 1:15, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 743:13. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 14:1:1 to 14:24:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Sforno, Sforno on Numbers 14:7:1 and 14:8:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 14:3:1 to 14:19:1, cited by ref because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit the text here; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/14.json, the 9 Talmud and 31 Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Let us choose a captain and go back
Numbers 14:1-2
The whole camp weeps a night away over a report about a country none of them has seen. Their wish is stated twice and the second form of it is the one to hold on to, would God we had died in this wilderness. Verse 29 gives them that exact thing in almost those words, and verse 28 says outright that the sentence is their own sentence read back.
Numbers 14:1
“Cried; and - wept that night - In almost every case this people gave deplorable evidence of the degraded state of their minds. With scarcely any mental firmness, and with almost no religion, they could bear no reverses, and were ever at their wit’s end. They were headstrong, presumptuous, pusillanimous, indecisive, and fickle. And because they were such, therefore the power and wisdom of God appeared the more conspicuously in the whole of their history.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Numbers 14:1
“And, as if all had been already gone, they sat down and wept that night. Note, Unbelief, or distrust of God, is a sin that is its own punishment. Those that do not trust God are continually vexing themselves.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The wish to have died in Egypt was first spoken at Exodus 16:3, over bread in the wilderness of Sin. There God answered with manna, and here he takes them at their word. Matthew Henry says their memories were sacrificed to their passions.
Numbers 14:2
“29, 30 , Be not afraid; the Lord your God shall fight for you. Note, Those that are zealous friends to precious souls will stoop to any thing for their salvation. Moses and Aaron, notwithstanding the posts of honour they are in, prostrate themselves to the people to beg of them not to ruin themselves.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 14:2
“A leader to reconduct them to Egypt is spoken of (Ne 9:17) as actually nominated. The sinfulness and insane folly of their conduct are almost incredible. Their conduct, however, is paralleled by too many among us, who shrink from the smallest difficulties and rather remain slaves to sin than resolutely try to surmount the obstacles that lie in their way to the Canaan above.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 14:3-4
The complaint moves from grief to a plan in one verse. They propose a captain and a return to Egypt, which reverses everything the last two books did, and Nehemiah 9:17 looks back on this moment and says that in their rebellion they appointed a captain to return to their bondage. What they say will become a prey, their wives and children, is what verse 31 promises to bring in.
Numbers 14:3
“43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the L ORD , therefore the L ORD will not be with you. 44 But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the L ORD , and Moses, departed not out of the camp.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry notes that Deuteronomy 28:68 names a return to Egypt as the last misery of a broken covenant, and here the people choose it. Clarke calls the plan a formal renunciation of the authority of Moses and flat rebellion against God. Exodus 1:14 had called their lives there bitter.
Numbers 14:4
“Let us make a captain - Here was a formal renunciation of the authority of Moses, and flat rebellion against God. And it seems from Neh 9:17 that they had actually appointed another leader, under whose direction they were about to return to Egypt. How astonishing is this! Their lives were made bitter, because of the rigor with which they were made to serve in the land of Egypt; and yet they are willing, yea eager, to get back into the same circumstances again!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 14:4
“Like brute-beasts, they mind only what is present, and their memories, with the other powers of reason, are sacrificed to their passions. We find it threatened ( Deut. xxviii. 68 ), as the completing of their misery, that they should be brought into Egypt again, and yet this is what they here wish for.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 14:5-6
Four men act while the nation shouts, and they act in two different ways. Moses and Aaron go face down before the assembly, which is the posture of men interceding. Joshua and Caleb rend their clothes, which is the sign of a death or a blasphemy heard.
Numbers 14:5
“Already Caleb had endeavored to still the people before Moses Num 13:30; already Moses himself (Deu 1:29 ff) had endeavored to recall the people to obedience. After the failure of these efforts Moses and Aaron cast themselves down in solemn prayer before God (compare Num 16:22); and the appearance of the glory of the Lord in the “tabernacle of the congregation” Num 14:10 was the immediate answer.”
Joshua is named with Caleb here, though Caleb had spoken alone at Numbers 13:30. Both speak as eyewitnesses of the land. Barnes notes that Caleb and Moses had each already tried to recall the people.
Numbers 14:6
“THE UNBELIEF OF THE CHILDREN of Israel, prompted them to send spies into Canaan. God had told them that it was a good land, and he had promised to drive out their enemies, they ought therefore to have marched forward with all confidence to possess the promised heritage. Instead of this, they send twelve princes to spy out the land, and “alas, for human nature,” ten of these were faithless, and only two true to the Lord. Read over the narrative, and mark the ill effect of the lying message, and the holy boldness of the true spies.”
Numbers 14:7-9
Joshua and Caleb dispute none of the facts the ten reported and draw the opposite conclusion. The land is an exceedingly good land, the LORD will bring us in if He delights in us, and the people will be like bread for us. They ask only that Israel not rebel, so the danger they name is the camp.
The condition is the LORD's delight, and verse 9 names the one thing that could forfeit it, rebellion. David uses the same word in Psalm 18:19, where the LORD rescued him because He delighted in him. Exodus 3:8 first gave that promise.
Numbers 14:8
“If the Lord delight in us,.... Continue to delight in them as he had, and as appears by what he had done for, them in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness; see Deu 10:15, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us, as he has promised: a land which floweth with milk and honey; as the Lord himself hath described it, and as the unbelieving spies themselves had owned it; Num 13:27.”
Barnes gives the Hebrew behind protection as their shadow, the shelter a traveller seeks from the scorching sun. Psalm 121:5 calls the LORD the shade at Israel's right hand. Deuteronomy 1:29-30 has Moses give the same charge, with the LORD going ahead to fight.
Numbers 14:9
“Their defense - literally, “their shadow,” i. e. their shelter as from the scorching sun: an Oriental figure. Compare the marginal references.”
The answer to the minority report is a call to kill the men who gave it. The glory of the LORD appears in the same verse and stops the stoning without a word being spoken. Two things happen in one sentence and the text sets no connective between them.
Numbers 14:10
“The glory of the Lord appeared - This timely appearance of the Divine glory prevented these faithful servants of God from being stoned to death by this base and treacherous multitude. “Every man is immortal till his work is done,” while in simplicity of heart he is following his God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Moses pleads on the strength of God's name
Numbers 14:11-12
God names the charge as unbelief: How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them? Hebrews 3:19 reads the whole episode that way. The offer to start again from Moses repeats Exodus 32:10 after the calf.
Numbers 14:11
“THE children of Israel were very prone to unbelief. They wanted something visible to worship and to trust. They could not learn the lesson of faith in the one great Invisible and, therefore, they were one day bowing before an idol and the next they were murmuring against the true God.”
The Hebrew adds a verb Barnes renders disinherit them, the blessings of the covenant returning to their original giver. The promise to Abraham would still stand through Moses, himself a son of Abraham. Moses answers by pleading for the people.
Numbers 14:12
“And disinherit them - By the proposed extinction of Israel the blessings of the covenant would revert to their original donor.”
Numbers 14:13-16
Moses answers the offer by arguing about what Egypt and Canaan will conclude, and he never once argues that Israel deserves better. His case is that the nations will say the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land. It is the same argument he made at Exodus 32:12, and both times he puts God's reputation where a man would have put his own advantage.
Numbers 14:13
“The syntax of these verses is singularly broken. As did Paul when deeply moved, so Moses presses his arguments one on the other without pausing to ascertain the grammatical finish of his expressions. He speaks here as if in momentary apprehension of an outbreak of God’s wrath, unless he could perhaps arrest it by crowding in every topic of deprecation and intercession that he could mention on the instant.”
The Hebrew behind face to face reads eye to eye, a picture of the LORD seen at close range. Rahab confirms at Joshua 2:10 that Canaan had heard of the sea. Barnes calls the syntax of these verses singularly broken.
Numbers 14:14
“That thy cloud standeth over them - This cloud, the symbol of the Divine glory, and proof of the Divine presence, appears to have assumed three different forms for three important purposes. 1. It appeared by day in the form of a pillar of a sufficient height to be seen by all the camp, and thus went before them to point out their way in the desert. Exo 40:38.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
As one man pictures the whole nation cut down at once. The nations who have heard of Your fame are the ones Exodus 15:14-16 said would hear and tremble, Philistia, Edom, Moab and Canaan. Barnes compares Moses to Paul, pressing argument upon argument when deeply moved.
Numbers 14:15
“He does not ask that they may not be corrected, but that they may not be disinherited. And this proclamation of God's name was the more apposite to his purpose because it was made upon occasion of the pardoning of their sin in making the golden calf. This sin which they had now fallen into was bad enough, but it was not idolatry.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Moses puts words in the mouths of the nations. Deuteronomy 9:28 records him using the same plea after the calf, and Joshua prays on the same ground at Joshua 7:9, asking what God will do for His great name. Barnes hears a man crowding in every plea he can name.
Numbers 14:16
“Now, Lord, let not one attribute be glorified at the expense of another; rather let mercy rejoice against judgment than that almighty power should be impeached." Note, The best pleas in prayer are those that are taken from God's honour; for they agree with the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be thy name.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 14:17-19
Moses asks that the power of my Lord be magnified, just as You have declared, and then quotes God's words back to Him. The quotation is the self-description of Exodus 34:6-7, given after the calf, and he keeps its hard half with its mild half. It is the earliest place in Scripture where a man prays God's own sentence back to Him.
Moses quotes Exodus 34:6-7 in a shortened form, keeping slow to anger at the front because his plea needs it. The visiting of iniquity on the children is carried out at verse 33, where the sons wander forty years. Jerome reads the offspring as evil deeds.
Numbers 14:18
“That is to say, God will not punish us at once for our thoughts and resolves but will send retribution upon their offspring, that is, upon the evil deeds and habits of sin which arise out of them.”
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 130.8patristic
Moses measures the pardon he asks by the greatness of God's loving devotion, the word hesed of verse 18, and grounds it on the forgiveness shown since Egypt. Psalm 99:8 says God was a forgiving God to Moses and Aaron and an avenger of their misdeeds. Verse 20 grants the pardon.
Numbers 14:19
“Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people - From Num 14:13 to Num 14:19 inclusive we have the words of Moses’s intercession; they need no explanation, they are full of simplicity and energy; his arguments with God (for be did reason and argue with his Maker) are pointed, cogent, and respectful; and while they show a heart full of humanity, they evidence the deepest concern for the glory of God. The argumentum ad hominem is here used in the most unexceptionable manner, and with the fullest effect.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Pardoned, yet none of them shall see it
The pardon is granted in six words and the rest of the chapter still falls on them. Israel is not destroyed and is not disinherited, and every adult who murmured still dies in the desert. Commentators divide over how to hold those two together, some reading the pardon as remitting the nation's destruction while leaving the generation's discipline, and the chapter states both facts and reconciles neither.
Numbers 14:20
“And the Lord said, I have pardoned, according to thy word. So as not to kill them utterly as one man: which is an instance of his being plenteous in mercy, and ready to forgive; and of the virtue and efficacy of the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, and of the great regard the Lord has to the prayers of a good man for others.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 14:20
“I have pardoned - That is, They shall not be cut off as they deserve, because thou hast interceded for their lives.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
In the middle of passing sentence God swears by his own life that the whole earth will be filled with his glory. The oath is larger than the failure it answers and it does not depend on this generation. Isaiah 11:9 and Habakkuk 2:14 both carry the same line forward.
Numbers 14:21
“Render: But as truly as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord; Num 14:22 all those men, etc.; Num 14:23 shall not see, etc. Num 14:22 These ten times - Ten is the number which imports completeness. Compare Gen 31:7. The sense is that the measure of their provocation was now full: the day of grace was at last over. However, some enumerate 10 different occasions on which the people had tempted God since the exodus.”
Numbers 14:22-23
The book keeps its own tally and gives the number here. Ten times covers the sea, Marah, the wilderness of Sin, Rephidim, the calf, Taberah, Kibroth-hattaavah and this, and the older commentators list them in slightly different ways. What the sentence turns on is stated in the same verse, that these are men who saw the miracles and have not hearkened to my voice.
Numbers 14:22
“It is not made worse than really it was, but is shown to be exceedingly sinful. It was an evil congregation, each bad, but altogether in congregation, very bad. They tempted God--tempted his power, whether he could help them in their straits--his goodness, whether he would--and his faithfulness, whether his promise would be performed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The word for contempt is the one God used at verse 11. Psalm 95:11 recalls this oath as God swearing in anger that they would never enter His rest, and Hebrews 3:11 and 3:18 take it up. Matthew Henry says they tempted God's power, goodness and faithfulness.
Numbers 14:24-25
Caleb is named alone here and Joshua is added at verse 30, and the reason given for Caleb is another spirit with him and following fully. The land he walked in is the land his seed will hold, which Joshua 14:6-14 records him claiming forty-five years later at eighty-five. Then the order of march reverses, back toward the Red sea, which is the direction they came from.
Numbers 14:24
“But my servant Caleb, etc. - Caleb had another spirit - not only a bold, generous, courageous, noble, and heroic spirit; but the Spirit and influence of the God of heaven thus raised him above human inquietudes and earthly fears, therefore be followed God fully; וימלא אחרי vaimalle acharai, literally, he filled after me: God showed him the way he was to take, and the line of conduct he was to pursue, and he filled up this line, and in all things followed the will of his Maker.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 14:24
“IT is a rough name that—"Caleb." Most translators say it signifies "a dog." But what matters a man's name? Possibly the man himself was somewhat rough—many of the heartiest of men are so. As the unpolished oyster yet bears within itself the priceless pearl, so oftentimes ruggedness of exterior covers worth. A dog, moreover, is not all badness, though, "Without are dogs and sorcerers." It has this virtue, that it follows its master. And therein this Caleb was well-named. For never dog so followed his master as Caleb followed his God.”
Barnes reads tomorrow as an idiom for from now on, and the Amalekites as nomad bands roaming the open plain. Deuteronomy 1:44 names the Canaanites of this verse as Amorites. The people defy this order at verse 40.
Numbers 14:25
“Render: And now the Amalekites and the Canaanites are dwelling (or abiding) in the valley: wherefore turn you, etc. (that so ye be not smitten before them). The Amalekites were the nomad bands that roved through the open pastures of the plain Num 14:45: the Canaanites, a term here taken in its wider sense, were the Amorites of the neighboring cities (compare Num 14:45 with Deu 1:44), who probably lived in league with the Amalekites. Tomorrow - Not necessarily the next day, but an idiom for “hereafter,” “henceforward” (compare the marginal reading in Exo 13:14; Jos 4:6).”
A year for a day: forty years of wandering
Numbers 14:26-27
The sentence is delivered a second time and this time it is addressed to the people rather than to Moses alone. The word murmur falls three times in one verse, and the chapter uses it five times in all. God says he has heard the murmurings, which answers the assumption in verse 2 that complaining among themselves was a private act.
Numbers 14:26
“And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron,.... Before he had been only speaking to Moses, who had interceded with him to pardon the people, which he had granted; but at the same time assured him they should not enter into and possess the land of Canaan, and the same he repeats to him and Aaron together: saying: as follows.”
How long opens this speech, as it opened verse 11. Matthew Henry reads wicked congregation as a people bad one by one and worse together. Jewish tradition drew its quorum of ten for prayer from this word, counting the ten spies.
Numbers 14:27
“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me?.... 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.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 14:27
“Note, It is much easier to bring ourselves to the external services of religion, and observe all the formalities of devotion, than to live a life of dependence upon, and submission to, the divine Providence in the course of our conversation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 14:28-30
The sentence returns their own words to them. They had wished to die in this wilderness at verse 2, and verse 29 answers, Your bodies will fall in this wilderness. Everyone twenty years of age or older is included, except Caleb and Joshua, which is what Numbers 26:65 reports at the end of the forty years.
Numbers 14:28
“We must also consider the words "as I live, says the Lord." Perhaps living in the proper sense, especially on the basis of what has been said about living, occurs with God alone. And see if the apostle … considered the superiority of the life of God to be beyond comparison and understood the words "as I live says the Lord" in a manner worthy of God. Can [he] for this reason have said of God, "Who alone has immortality," because none of the living beings with God has the life which is absolutely unchangeable and immutable?”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 2.123patristic
The men counted in the census of Numbers 1:3 were counted as those able to go to war, and they are the men who refused the war. First Corinthians 10:5 recalls that most of them were struck down in the wilderness. Gill reads the oath as sworn to Abraham's seed.
Numbers 14:29
“Of such inflexibility were those youths of twenty years, who foretokened in figure God's new people; they entered the land of promise; they, it is said, turned neither to the right hand nor to the left. Now this age of twenty is not to be compared with the age of children's innocence, but if I mistake not, this number is the shadow and echo of a mystery. For the Old Testament has its excellence in the five books of Moses, while the New Testament is most refulgent in the authority of the four Gospels.”
Augustine of Hippo · written before 430 · ON THE MERITS AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND ON INFANT BAPTISM 2.35.57patristic
The Hebrew opens with if you shall come, the form of an oath with its curse left unspoken, and Gill reads it as a sworn denial. The land is the one God swore to settle them in, literally lifting His hand. Caleb is named first, as at verse 24.
Numbers 14:30
“Doubtless ye shall not come into the land,.... The land of Canaan; or "if ye shall come" (a); that is, I swear ye shall not, so the Targum of Jonathan: concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein; not them personally, but the people and nation of which they were, and to which they belonged, the seed and posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom the oath was made: save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun; who brought a good report of the land.”
Numbers 14:31-32
The thing they said would be lost is the thing that is kept. Their children go in, and the verse quotes the parents' own phrase back at them as it says so. The generation that would not go dies where it stood and the generation it feared for inherits.
Numbers 14:31
“But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey,.... To the Canaanites, Num 14:3, them will I bring in; into the land of Canaan, and so fulfil the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for the unbelief of this congregation did not make the faith, or faithfulness of God, of none effect: and they shall know the land which ye have despised; shall know what a good land it is by experience, and shall possess and enjoy it with approbation, delight, and pleasure, which they, believing the spies, rejected with, loathing and disdain.”
Matthew Henry sets these graves beside the fathers who asked to have their bodies carried into Canaan. Genesis 50:25 records Joseph's charge, and Exodus 13:19 has Moses carrying his bones out of Egypt. Joseph's bones went in and these men stayed out.
Numbers 14:32
“Their fathers had such a value for Canaan that they desired to have their dead bodies carried thither to be buried, in token of their dependence upon God's promise that they should have that land for a possession: but these, having despised that good land and disbelieved the promise of it, shall not have the honour to be buried in it, but shall have their graves in the wilderness.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 14:33-34
The sentence is measured by the errand, forty days searching answered by forty years, a year for each day. Ezekiel 4:6 states the same rule again. At the close of verse 34 the King James reads my breach of promise, a hard rendering, and others read the Hebrew as opposition or alienation, which the Berean gives as My alienation.
Numbers 14:33
“And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years,.... Or "feed" (b), as shepherds, who go from place to place, and seek fresh pasture for their sheep; it being the custom of a shepherd, as Aben Ezra observes, not to stand or rest in a place; and so like sheep grazing in a wilderness, where they have short commons, and wander about in search, of better.”
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 14:33
“Your whoredoms - Their several rebellions had been so many acts of faithless departure from the Lord who had taken them unto Himself. And as the children of the unchaste have generally to bear in their earthly careers much of the disgrace and the misery which forms the natural penalty of their parents’ transgression; so here the children of the Israelites, although suffered to hope for an eventual entry into Canaan, were yet to endure, through many long years’ wandering, the appropriate punishment of their fathers’ willfulness.”
Numbers 14:33
“It should seem that upon occasion of this sentence Moses penned the ninetieth Psalm , which is very apposite to the present state of Israel, and wherein they are taught to pray that since this sentence could not be reversed it might be sanctified, and they might learn to apply their hearts unto wisdom. The mercy that was mixed with this severe sentence.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The phrase bear your guilt uses avon, the Hebrew word for iniquity and for the penalty it brings. Clarke observes that the sentence hedged them in, so they could neither go back to Egypt nor go forward into the land. The captain proposed at verse 4 had nowhere to lead.
Numbers 14:34
“After the number of the days - The spies were forty days in searching the land, and the people who rebelled on their evil report are condemned to wander forty years in the wilderness! Now let them make them a captain and go back to Egypt if they can. God had so hedged them about with his power and providence that they could neither go back to Egypt nor get forward to the promised land! God has provided innumerable spiritual blessings for mankind, but in the pursuit of earthly good they lose them, and often lose the others also!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 14:35-38
The ten men who brought the report die first and they die by plague, before any of the forty years begins. What the text charges them with is bringing up a slander upon the land, so the offence is what they said about a place. Joshua and Caleb lived still, and that short sentence is the whole of their reward until Joshua 14.
The charge adds a second offence to the report itself, that the ten made the whole congregation grumble. James 3:1 says teachers will be judged more strictly. Clarke turns this against preachers who make the way of salvation look hard.
Numbers 14:36
“And the men which Moses sent to search the land,.... Ten of them: who returned; as they all did, who were sent to search it: and made all the congregation to murmur against him; against, Moses that sent them; they murmured themselves, and made others murmur: by bringing up a slander upon the land; that it ate up its inhabitants, and that the inhabitants of it were of such a stature, and so gigantic and strong, and dwelt in such walled cities, Num 13:28, that there was no probability of subduing them, Num 13:31.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 14:36
“God hereby showed his particular displeasure against those who sinned and made Israel to sin. (1.) They sinned themselves, in bringing up a slander upon the land of promise.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Before the LORD places the deaths in his presence, where the glory had appeared at the tent in verse 10. Clarke says ten of the twelve were struck dead on the spot by the justice of God. The men who said the land devours its people died first.
Numbers 14:37
“Those men that did bring up the evil report died - Thus ten of the twelve that searched out the land were struck dead, by the justice of God, on the spot! Caleb, of the tribe of Judah, and Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim, alone escaped, because they had followed God fully. Let preachers of God’s word take heed how they straiten the way of salvation, or render, by unjust description, that way perplexed and difficult which God has made plain and easy.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry pictures the twelve standing together before the camp, ten falling dead of the plague and two standing well among them. Their survival was the first proof of the promise of verse 30. Caleb was forty years old, as Joshua 14:7 records.
Numbers 14:38
“It is probable that all the twelve spies stood together, for the eyes of all Israel were now upon them; and therefore it is taken notice of as very remarkable, and which could not but be affecting to the whole congregation, that when the ten evil spies fell down dead of the plague, a malignant infectious distemper, yet these two that stood among them lived, and were well.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
They went up anyway, and were beaten back
Numbers 14:39-42
They mourn, and then early the next morning they do the thing they refused to do the day before. Saying we have sinned and going up anyway is what Moses calls transgressing the commandment of the LORD, because the command had changed overnight to turn back. Sorrow and obedience are two different things and the chapter shows the gap between them.
Clarke reads the confession as the people supposing that a short sorrow would count as atonement for their rebellion. They go toward the promised place on the day after the LORD withdrew the promise from them. The zeal they lacked arrives a day late.
Numbers 14:40
“We - will go up unto the place, etc. - They found themselves on the very borders of the land, and they heard God say they should not enter it, but should be consumed by a forty years’ wandering in the wilderness; notwithstanding, they are determined to render vain this purpose of God, probably supposing that the temporary sorrow they felt for their late rebellion would be accepted as a sufficient atonement for their crimes. They accordingly went up, and were cut down by their enemies; and why? God went not with them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Zechariah son of Jehoiada uses almost these words at 2 Chronicles 24:20, asking Judah why they transgress the commands of the LORD and saying they cannot prosper. Deuteronomy 1:42 records the LORD's own word forbidding this attack. Clarke says they were cut down by their enemies.
Numbers 14:41
“And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord?.... Which was to turn back into the wilderness, and go the way that leads to the Red sea, Num 14:25; instead of which now they were for going forward into the land of Canaan, though averse to it just before: but it shall not prosper; their attempt to enter into it.”
The LORD's presence with Israel was the whole case of Caleb and Joshua at verse 9. Moses now tells them the LORD is absent, and the presence that would have won the land is the one thing they lack. Exodus 33:3 had given the same warning after the calf.
Numbers 14:43-45
They presume to go up and the ark of the covenant and Moses stay in the camp, so the army goes without the two things that made it an army. Amalek is there, as it was at Rephidim in Exodus 17, and the rout runs as far as Hormah. Deuteronomy 1:41-45 retells the same day and adds that they wept before the LORD and he would not hearken.
Deuteronomy 1:43 tells the same day as rebellion, the people going up against the command of the LORD. The ark had gone ahead of Israel at Numbers 10:33 to seek out a resting place. Here it stays in camp.
Barnes gives Hormah the sense of the ban-place, and Numbers 21:3 records Israel later destroying the towns of this region and naming them Hormah. Judges 1:17 gives its older name as Zephath. The place of this defeat became a place of victory.
Numbers 14:45
“Unto Hormah - literally, “the Hormah:” i. e. “the banning,” or “ban-place.” Compare Num 21:3; Jos 12:14. According to the view taken of Kadesh (see Num 13:26), Hormah is identified, through its earlier name, Zephath Jdg 1:17, with es-Safah on the southeastern frontier of Canaan, by which the Israelites quitted the Arabah for the higher ground, (or with Sebaita, which lies further to the west, about 25 miles north of Ain Gadis).”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, with the intercession of Moses and the sentence of God spoken inside it, as site classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Their own words handed back to them | The camp wishes at verse 2 that it had died in this wilderness. Verse 29 gives them that thing in almost those words, and verse 28 says outright that the sentence is their own sentence read back. The phrase this wilderness stands three times in the Berean text of the chapter, at verses 2, 29 and 32. The children they said at verse 3 would become plunder are the children verse 31 brings in.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Numbers 14:1-2 and 14:31-32, as this chapter's exposition notes cite it. | Numbers 14:2, Numbers 14:3, Numbers 14:28, Numbers 14:29, Numbers 14:31 |
| The charge put twice in one verse | Verse 11 asks how long twice over, once about contempt and once about refusing to believe. The words how long stand three times in the Berean text of the chapter, twice at verse 11 and once at verse 27. God names the charge as unbelief and points to all the signs He had performed among them. Hebrews 3:19 reads the whole episode that way, saying they could not enter in because of unbelief.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, on Numbers 14:11-12, as this chapter's exposition note cites it. | Numbers 14:11, Numbers 14:27 |
| God's own words prayed back to Him | Moses says according as thou hast spoken and then quotes God's own words back to Him at verses 17 and 18. What he quotes is the self-description of Exodus 34:6-7, given to him on the mountain after the calf. He keeps the hard half of it as well as the mild half. The chapter's exposition note calls this the earliest place in Scripture where a man prays a sentence of God's own back to God.John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, on Numbers 14:17-19, as this chapter's exposition note cites it. | Numbers 14:17-19 |
| The tally of ten times | Verse 22 says the men have tested God these ten times, so the book keeps its own count and gives the number here. The chapter's exposition note lists the sea, Marah, the wilderness of Sin, Rephidim, the calf, Taberah, Kibroth-hattaavah and this occasion, and records that the older commentators list them in slightly different ways. What the sentence turns on is stated in the same verse, that these are men who saw the signs and disobeyed anyway.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, on Numbers 14:22-23, as this chapter's exposition note cites it. | Numbers 14:22 |
| The refusal at the start, the presumption at the close | The chapter opens at verses 1 to 4 with a camp that will not go up and proposes a captain to take it back to Egypt. It closes at verses 40 to 45 with the same camp going up when the command has changed to turn back. Moses calls that transgressing the commandment of the LORD, and the ark stays in the camp. The rout runs as far as Hormah.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Numbers 14:39-42, as this chapter's exposition note cites it. | Numbers 14:1-4, Numbers 14:40-45 |
The historical value
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The rout of verses 40 to 45 is recorded twice in the canon. Deuteronomy 1:41-45 retells the same day and adds that they wept before the LORD and He would not hearken. The enemies named are the Amalekites and the Canaanites of that hill country, and Amalek had already met Israel at Rephidim in Exodus 17. The chapter's own geography is the ridge of the hill country and the place called Hormah.
The debated concept
The pardon of verse 20 stands beside a sentence that falls on every adult in the camp. Adam Clarke reads the pardon as meaning they shall not be cut off as they deserve, because Moses had interceded for their lives. The chapter's exposition note records that commentators divide here, some reading the pardon as remitting the nation's destruction while leaving the generation's discipline in place. The chapter states both facts and reconciles neither, and a student should let it stand that way.
The last clause of verse 34 is rendered in more than one way. The King James gives ye shall know my breach of promise. Albert Barnes says the word in the original is found elsewhere only in Job 30:10 and means my withdrawals or my turning away. The American Standard Version gives my alienation, and the Berean text on this site gives you will experience My alienation. The two readings differ over whether God's own promise or God's own presence is the thing in view.
Verse 21 swears that the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. Adam Clarke reads the Hebrew as all this land, the land of Canaan, and takes it as fulfilled when the preaching of Christ and His apostles was heard through the cities and villages of Judea. The chapter's exposition note sets the wider reading beside it, since Isaiah 11:9 and Habakkuk 2:14 both carry the same line forward. Each reading turns on how far the same two Hebrew words reach elsewhere.
The New Testament's use
Hebrews 3:19 reads this chapter as the case of unbelief, saying they could not enter in because of unbelief. That is the charge God Himself makes at verse 11, where the question is about refusing to believe after the signs. The page on the wilderness generation at /featured/the-wilderness-generation carries the fuller treatment of how the New Testament uses these events.
The divine connection
The oath of verse 21 is larger than the failure it answers. God swears by His own life in the middle of passing sentence, and what He swears is that the whole earth will be filled with His glory. The sentence falls on one generation and the oath does not depend on that generation. Verse 18, quoted from Exodus 34:6-7, holds both halves of God's character together in one line. The slowness to anger and the loving devotion stand on one side, and the guilt that is not cleared stands on the other.
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, on Psalm 95 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
The Numbers book guide of this site, `src/components/book/guides/numbers/NumbersGuide.tsx`, where movement II, Sinai to Kadesh, the Old Generation's Collapse, is typed at 10:11 to 20:13.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jerome, LETTER 130.8; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.