Numbers 14:31
Context14:31 But I will bring in your little ones, whom you said would become victims of war, 1 and they will enjoy 2 the land that you have despised.
Deuteronomy 1:39
Context1:39 Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, 3 and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, 4 will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.
[1:39] 3 tn Heb “would be a prey.”
[1:39] 4 sn Do not know good from bad. This is a figure of speech called a merism (suggesting a whole by referring to its extreme opposites). Other examples are the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9), the boy who knows enough “to reject the wrong and choose the right” (Isa 7:16; 8:4), and those who “cannot tell their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11). A young child is characterized by lack of knowledge.