The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Numbers 14
1 All the congregation lifted up their
voice, and cried; and the people wept that
night.
2 All the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and against Aaron. The
whole congregation said to them, “We
wish that we had died in the land of Egypt,
or that we had died in this wilderness!
3 Why does Yahweh bring us to this
land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and
our little ones will be captured or killed!
Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into
Egypt?”
4 They said to one another, “Let’s choose
a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their
faces before allthe assembly ofthe congregation of the children of Israel.
6 Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the
son of Jephunneh, who were of those who
spied out the land, tore their clothes.
7 They spoke to all the congregation of
the children of Israel, saying, “The land,
which we passed through to spy it out, is
an exceedingly good land.
8 If Yahweh delights in us, then he will
bring us into this land, and give it to us: a
land which flows with milk and honey.
9 Only don’t rebel against Yahweh, neither fear the people of the land; for they
are bread for us. Their defense is removed
from over them, and Yahweh is with us.
Don’t fear them.”
10 But all the congregation threatened to
stone them with stones.
Yahweh’s glory appeared in the Tent of
Meeting to all the children of Israel.
11 Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will
this people despise me? How long willthey
not believe in me, for all the signs which I
have worked among them?
12 I will strike them with the pestilence,
and disinherit them, and will make of you
a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13 Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this
people in your might from among them.
14 They will tell it to the inhabitants of
this land. They have heard that you Yahweh are among this people; for you Yahweh are seen face to face, and your cloud
stands over them, and you go before them,
in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of
fire by night.
15 Now if you killed this people as one
man, then the nations which have heard
the fame of you will speak, saying,
16 ‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring
this people into the land which he swore
to them, therefore he has slain them in the
wilderness.’
17 Now please let the power of the Lord†
be great, according as you have spoken,
saying,
18 ‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity
and disobedience; and he will by no means
clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers onthe children, onthe third and on
the fourth generation.’
19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving
kindness, and just as you have forgiven
this people, from Egypt even until now.”
20 Yahweh said, “I have pardoned according to your word;
21 but in very deed—as I live, and as
all the earth shall be filled with Yahweh’s
glory—
22 because all those men who have seen
my glory and my signs, which I worked
in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have
tempted me these ten times, and have not
listened to my voice;
23 surely they shall not see the land
which I swore to their fathers, neither
shall any of those who despised me see it.
24 But my servant Caleb, because he had
another spirit with him, and has followed
me fully, him I will bring into the land into
which he went. His offspring shall possess
it.
25 Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite
dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go
into the wilderness by the way to the Red
Sea.”
26 Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron,
saying,
27 “How long shall I bear with this evil
congregation that complain against me? I
have heard the complaints of the children
of Israel, which they complain against me.
28 Tell them, ‘As I live, says Yahweh,
surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I
will do to you.
29 Your dead bodies shall fall in this
wilderness; and all who were counted of
you, according to your whole number,
from twenty years old and upward, who
have complained against me,
30 surely you shall not come into the land
concerning which I swore that I would
make you dwell therein, except Caleb the
son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of
Nun.
31 But I will bring in your little ones that
you said should be captured or killed, and
they shall know the land which you have
rejected.
32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall
fall in this wilderness.
33 Your children shall be wanderers in
the wilderness forty years, and shall bear
your prostitution, until your dead bodies
are consumed in the wilderness.
34 After the number of the days in which
you spied out the land, even forty days,
for every day a year, you will bear your
iniquities, even forty years, and you will
know my alienation.’
35 I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely
do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this
wilderness they shall be consumed, and
there they shall die.”
36 The men whom Moses sent to spy out
the land, who returned and made all the
congregation to murmur against him by
bringing up an evil report againstthe land,
37 even those men who brought up an
evil report of the land, died by the plague
before Yahweh.
38 But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb
the son of Jephunneh remained alive of
those men who went to spy out the land.
39 Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned
greatly.
40 They rose up early in the morning and
went up to the top of the mountain, saying,
“Behold, we are here, and will go up to the
place which Yahweh has promised; for we
have sinned.”
41 Moses said, “Why now do you disobey the commandment of Yahweh, since
it shall not prosper?
42 Don’t go up, for Yahweh isn’t among
you; that way you won’t be struck down
before your enemies.
43 For there the Amalekite and the
Canaanite are before you, and you will
fall by the sword because you turned back
fromfollowingYahweh;thereforeYahweh
will not be with you.”
44 But they presumed to go up to the
top of the mountain. Nevertheless, the
ark ofYahweh’s covenant andMosesdidn’t
depart out of the camp.
45 Then the Amalekites came down, and
the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down
even to Hormah.