Numbers 14:17-45

14:17 So now, let the power of my Lord ¹  be great, just as you have said, 14:18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, ²  forgiving iniquity and transgression, ³  but by no means clearing ⁴  the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children until the third and fourth generations.’ ⁵  14:19 Please forgive ⁶  the iniquity of this people according to your great loyal love, ⁷  just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.”

14:20 Then the Lord said, “I have forgiven them as you asked. ⁸  14:21 But truly, as I live, ⁹  all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. 14:22 For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted ¹⁰  me now these ten times, ¹¹  and have not obeyed me, ¹²  14:23 they will by no means ¹³  see the land that I swore to their fathers, nor will any of them who despised me see it. 14:24 Only my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully – I will bring him into the land where he had gone, and his descendants ¹⁴  will possess it. 14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) ¹⁵  Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

14:26 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: 14:27 “How long must I bear ¹⁶  with this evil congregation ¹⁷  that murmurs against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites that they murmured against me. 14:28 Say to them, ‘As I live, ¹⁸  says ¹⁹  the Lord, I will surely do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing. ²⁰  14:29 Your dead bodies ²¹  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. 14:30 You will by no means enter into the land where ²²  I swore ²³  to settle ²⁴  you. The only exceptions are Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. 14:31 But I will bring in your little ones, whom you said would become victims of war, ²⁵  and they will enjoy ²⁶  the land that you have despised. 14:32 But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, 14:33 and your children will wander ²⁷  in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, ²⁸  until your dead bodies lie finished ²⁹  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 ³⁰  your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. ³¹  14:35 I, the Lord, have said, “I will surely do so to all this evil congregation that has gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will be finished, and there they will die!”’”

14:36 The men whom Moses sent to investigate the land, who returned and made the whole community murmur against him by producing ³²  an evil report about the land, 14:37 those men who produced the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord. 14:38 But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among ³³  the men who went to investigate the land, lived. 14:39 When Moses told ³⁴  these things to all the Israelites, the people mourned ³⁵  greatly.

14:40 And early ³⁶  in the morning they went up to the crest of the hill country, ³⁷  saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that the Lord commanded, ³⁸  for we have sinned.” ³⁹  14:41 But Moses said, “Why ⁴⁰  are you now transgressing the commandment ⁴¹  of the Lord? It will not succeed! 14:42 Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, and you will be ⁴²  defeated before your enemies. 14:43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.”

14:44 But they dared ⁴³  to go up to the crest of the hill, although ⁴⁴  neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp. 14:45 So the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country swooped ⁴⁵  down and attacked them ⁴⁶  as far as Hormah. ⁴⁷ 

[14:17]  ¹ tc The form in the text is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay), the word that is usually used in place of the tetragrammaton. It is the plural form with the pronominal suffix, and so must refer to God.

[14:18]  ² tn The expression is רַב־חֶסֶד (rav khesed) means “much of loyal love,” or “faithful love.” Some have it “totally faithful,” but that omits the aspect of his love.

[14:18]  ³ tn Or “rebellion.”

[14:18]  ⁴ tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the verbal activity of the imperfect tense, which here serves as a habitual imperfect. Negated it states what God does not do; and the infinitive makes that certain.

[14:18]  ⁵ sn The Decalogue adds “to those who hate me.” The point of the line is that the effects of sin, if not the sinful traits themselves, are passed on to the next generation.

[14:19]  ⁶ tn The verb סְלַח־נָא (selakh-na’), the imperative form, means “forgive” (see Ps 130:4), “pardon,” “excuse.” The imperative is of course a prayer, a desire, and not a command.

[14:19]  ⁷ tn The construct unit is “the greatness of your loyal love.” This is the genitive of specification, the first word being the modifier.

[14:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “forgiven according to your word.” The direct object, “them,” is implied.

[14:21]  ⁹ sn This is the oath formula, but in the Pentateuch it occurs here and in v. 28.

[14:22]  ¹⁰ tn The verb נָסָה (nasah) means “to test, to tempt, to prove.” It can be used to indicate things are tried or proven, or for testing in a good sense, or tempting in the bad sense, i.e., putting God to the test. In all uses there is uncertainty or doubt about the outcome. Some uses of the verb are positive: If God tests Abraham in Genesis 22:1, it is because there is uncertainty whether he fears the Lord or not; if people like Gideon put out the fleece and test the Lord, it is done by faith but in order to be certain of the Lord’s presence. But here, when these people put God to the test ten times, it was because they doubted the goodness and ability of God, and this was a major weakness. They had proof to the contrary, but chose to challenge God.

[14:22]  ¹¹ tn “Ten” is here a round figure, emphasizing the complete testing. But see F. V. Winnett, The Mosaic Tradition, 121-54.

[14:22]  ¹² tn Heb “listened to my voice.”

[14:23]  ¹³ tn The word אִם (’im) indicates a negative oath formula: “if” means “they will not.” It is elliptical. In a human oath one would be saying: “The Lord do to me if they see…,” meaning “they will by no means see.” Here God is swearing that they will not see the land.

[14:24]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “seed.”

[14:25]  ¹⁵ 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.

[14:27]  ¹⁶ tn The figure is aposiopesis, or sudden silence. The main verb is deleted from the line, “how long…this evil community.” The intensity of the emotion is the reason for the ellipsis.

[14:27]  ¹⁷ sn It is worth mentioning in passing that this is one of the Rabbinic proof texts for having at least ten men to form a congregation and have prayer. If God called ten men (the bad spies) a “congregation,” then a congregation must have ten men. But here the word “community/congregation” refers in this context to the people of Israel as a whole, not just to the ten spies.

[14:28]  ¹⁸ sn Here again is the oath that God swore in his wrath, an oath he swore by himself, that they would not enter the land. “As the Lord lives,” or “by the life of the Lord,” are ways to render it.

[14:28]  ¹⁹ tn The word נְאֻם (nÿ’um) is an “oracle.” It is followed by the subjective genitive: “the oracle of the Lord” is equal to saying “the Lord says.”

[14:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in my ears.”

[14:29]  ²¹ tn Or “your corpses” (also in vv. 32, 33).

[14:30]  ²² tn The relative pronoun “which” is joined with the resumptive pronoun “in it” to form a smoother reading “where.”

[14:30]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text uses the anthropomorphic expression “I raised my hand” in taking an oath.

[14:30]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to cause you to dwell; to cause you to settle.”

[14:31]  ²⁵ tn Or “plunder.”

[14:31]  ²⁶ tn Heb “know.”

[14:33]  ²⁷ tn The word is “shepherds.” It means that the people would be wilderness nomads, grazing their flock on available land.

[14:33]  ²⁸ 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.

[14:33]  ²⁹ 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.

[14:34]  ³⁰ tn Heb “you shall bear.”

[14:34]  ³¹ 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.

[14:36]  ³² tn The verb is the Hiphil infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition from the root יָצָא (yatsa’, “to bring out”). The use of the infinitive here is epexegetical, that is, explaining how they caused the people to murmur.

[14:38]  ³³ tn The Hebrew text uses the preposition “from,” “some of” – “from those men.” The relative pronoun is added to make a smoother reading.

[14:39]  ³⁴ tn The preterite here is subordinated to the next preterite to form a temporal clause.

[14:39]  ³⁵ tn The word אָבַל (’aval) is rare, used mostly for mourning over deaths, but it is used here of mourning over bad news (see also Exod 33:4; 1 Sam 15:35; 16:1; etc.).

[14:40]  ³⁶ tn The verb וַיַּשְׁכִּמוּ (vayyashkimu) is often found in a verbal hendiadys construction: “They rose early…and they went up” means “they went up early.”

[14:40]  ³⁷ tn The Hebrew text says literally “the top of the hill,” but judging from the location and the terrain it probably means the heights of the hill country.

[14:40]  ³⁸ tn The verb is simply “said,” but it means the place that the Lord said to go up to in order to fight.

[14:40]  ³⁹ sn Their sin was unbelief. They could have gone and conquered the area if they had trusted the Lord for their victory. They did not, and so they were condemned to perish in the wilderness. Now, thinking that by going they can undo all that, they plan to go. But this is also disobedience, for the Lord said they would not now take the land, and yet they think they can. Here is their second sin, presumption.

[14:41]  ⁴⁰ tn The line literally has, “Why is this [that] you are transgressing….” The demonstrative pronoun is enclitic; it brings the force of “why in the world are you doing this now?”

[14:41]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “mouth.”

[14:42]  ⁴² tn This verb could also be subordinated to the preceding: “that you be not smitten.”

[14:44]  ⁴³ tn N. H. Snaith compares Arabic ’afala (“to swell”) and gafala (“reckless, headstrong”; Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 248). The wordעֹפֶל (’ofel) means a “rounded hill” or a “tumor.” The idea behind the verb may be that of “swelling,” and so “act presumptuously.”

[14:44]  ⁴⁴ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) here introduces a circumstantial clause; the most appropriate one here would be the concessive “although.”

[14:45]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “came down.”

[14:45]  ⁴⁶ tn The verb used here means “crush by beating,” or “pounded” them. The Greek text used “cut them in pieces.”

[14:45]  ⁴⁷ tn The name “Hormah” means “destruction”; it is from the word that means “ban, devote” for either destruction or temple use.