Numbers 14:25

14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ¹  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Numbers 14:34

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 ²  your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. ³ 

¹ sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south – unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.

² tn Heb “you shall bear.”

³ 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.