Numbers 14:36-39

14:36 The men whom Moses sent to investigate the land, who returned and made the whole community murmur against him by producing ¹  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 ²  the men who went to investigate the land, lived. 14:39 When Moses told ³  these things to all the Israelites, the people mourned ⁴  greatly.

[14:36]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ tn The preterite here is subordinated to the next preterite to form a temporal clause.

[14:39]  ⁴ 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.).