Numbers 14:11

The Punishment from God

14:11 The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise ¹  me, and how long will they not believe ²  in me, in spite of the signs that I have done among them?

Deuteronomy 1:31-35

1:31 and in the desert, where you saw him ³  carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place.” 1:32 However, through all this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God, 1:33 the one who was constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp. He appeared by fire at night and cloud by day, to show you the way you ought to go.

Judgment at Kadesh Barnea

1:34 When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow: ⁴  1:35 “Not a single person ⁵  of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors!

Psalms 95:9-11

95:9 where your ancestors challenged my authority, ⁶ 

and tried my patience, even though they had seen my work.

95:10 For forty years I was continually disgusted ⁷  with that generation,

and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray; ⁸ 

they do not obey my commands.’ ⁹ 

95:11 So I made a vow in my anger,

‘They will never enter into the resting place I had set aside for them.’” ¹⁰ 

Psalms 106:26

106:26 So he made a solemn vow ¹¹ 

that he would make them die ¹²  in the desert,

Hebrews 3:17-18

3:17 And against whom was God ¹³  provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁴  3:18 And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient?

¹ tn The verb נָאַץ (na’ats) means “to condemn, spurn” (BDB 610 s.v.). Coats suggests that in some contexts the word means actual rejection or renunciation (Rebellion in the Wilderness, 146, 7). This would include the idea of distaste.

² tn The verb “to believe” (root אָמַן, ’aman) has the basic idea of support, dependability for the root. The Hiphil has a declarative sense, namely, to consider something reliable or dependable and to act on it. The people did not trust what the Lord said.

³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun (“him”) has been employed in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁴ tn Heb “and swore,” i.e., made an oath or vow.

⁵ tn Heb “Not a man among these men.”

⁶ tn Heb “where your fathers tested me.”

⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form.

⁸ tn Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.”

⁹ tn Heb “and they do not know my ways.” In this context the Lord’s “ways” are his commands, viewed as a pathway from which his people, likened to wayward sheep (see v. 7), wander.

¹⁰ tn Heb “my resting place.” The promised land of Canaan is here viewed metaphorically as a place of rest for God’s people, who are compared to sheep (see v. 7).

¹¹ tn Heb “and he lifted his hand to [or “concerning”] them.” The idiom “to lift a hand” here refers to swearing an oath. One would sometimes solemnly lift one’s hand when making such a vow (see Ezek 20:5-6, 15).

¹² tn Heb “to cause them to fall.”

¹³ tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (God) has been specified for clarity.

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