Numbers 14:33-34

14:33 and your children will wander ¹  in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, ²  until your dead bodies lie finished ³  in the wilderness. 14:34 According to the number of the days you have investigated this land, forty days – one day for a year – you will suffer for ⁴  your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. ⁵ 

Numbers 32:13

32:13 So the Lord’s anger was kindled against the Israelites, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all that generation that had done wickedly before ⁶  the Lord was finished. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 1:3

1:3 However, it was not until ⁸  the first day of the eleventh month ⁹  of the fortieth year ¹⁰  that Moses addressed the Israelites just as ¹¹  the Lord had instructed him to do.

Deuteronomy 2:14-16

2:14 Now the length of time it took for us to go from Kadesh Barnea to the crossing of Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, time for all the military men of that generation to die, just as the Lord had vowed to them. 2:15 Indeed, it was the very hand of the Lord that eliminated them from within ¹²  the camp until they were all gone.

Instructions Concerning Ammon

2:16 So it was that after all the military men had been eliminated from the community, ¹³ 

Hebrews 3:9-10

3:9 “There your fathers tested me and tried me, ¹⁴  and they saw my works for forty years.

3:10 “Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering ¹⁵  and they have not known my ways.’

Hebrews 3:17

3:17 And against whom was God ¹⁶  provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁷ 

¹ tn The word is “shepherds.” It means that the people would be wilderness nomads, grazing their flock on available land.

² tn Heb “you shall bear your whoredoms.” The imagery of prostitution is used throughout the Bible to reflect spiritual unfaithfulness, leaving the covenant relationship and following after false gods. Here it is used generally for their rebellion in the wilderness, but not for following other gods.

³ tn The infinitive is from תָּמַם (tamam), which means “to be complete.” The word is often used to express completeness in a good sense – whole, blameless, or the like. Here and in v. 35 it seems to mean “until your deaths have been completed.” See also Gen 47:15; Deut 2:15.

⁴ tn Heb “you shall bear.”

⁵ tn The phrase refers to the consequences of open hostility to God, or perhaps abandonment of God. The noun תְּנוּאָה (tÿnu’ah) occurs in Job 33:10 (perhaps). The related verb occurs in Num 30:6 HT (30:5 ET) and 32:7 with the sense of “disallow, discourage.” The sense of the expression adopted in this translation comes from the meticulous study of R. Loewe, “Divine Frustration Exegetically Frustrated,” Words and Meanings, 137-58.

⁶ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

⁷ tn The verb is difficult to translate, since it has the idea of “complete, finish” (תָּמָם, tamam). It could be translated “consumed” in this passage (so KJV, ASV); NASB “was destroyed.”

⁸ tn Heb “in” or “on.” Here there is a contrast between the ordinary time of eleven days (v. 2) and the actual time of forty years, so “not until” brings out that vast disparity.

⁹ sn The eleventh month is Shebat in the Hebrew calendar, January/February in the modern (Gregorian) calendar.

¹⁰ sn The fortieth year would be 1406 b.c. according to the “early” date of the exodus. See E. H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 66-75.

¹¹ tn Heb “according to all which.”

¹² tn Heb “from the middle of.” Although many recent English versions leave this expression untranslated, the point seems to be that these soldiers did not die in battle but “within the camp.”

¹³ tn Heb “and it was when they were eliminated, all the men of war, to die from the midst of the people.”

¹⁴ tn Grk “tested me by trial.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “they are wandering in the heart.”

¹⁶ tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (God) has been specified for clarity.

¹⁷ sn An allusion to God’s judgment pronounced in Num 14:29, 32.