Numbers 14:11-12

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? 14:12 I will strike them with the pestilence, ³  and I will disinherit them; I will make you into a nation that is greater and mightier than they!”

Numbers 14:29

14:29 Your dead bodies ⁴  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

[14:11]  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.

[14:11]  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.

[14:12]  ³ tc The Greek version has “death.”

[14:29]  ⁴ tn Or “your corpses” (also in vv. 32, 33).