1And all the assembly will lift up and give their voice; and the people will weep in that night 2And all the children of Israel will murmur against Moses, and against Aaron; and all the assembly will say to them, Would we died in the land of Egypt! or in this desert would that we died! 3And wherefore does Jehovah bring us to this land to fall by the sword? our wives and our little ones shall be for a prey. Would it not be good for us to turn back to Egypt? 4And they will say, a man to his brother, We will give a head, and turn back to Egypt 5And Moses will fall, and Aaron, upon their faces before all the gathering of the assembly of the sons of Israel. 6And Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, from those searching out the land, tare their garments. 7And they will speak to all the assembly of the sons of Israel, saying, The land which we passed over upon it to search it out, a good land exceedingly, exceedingly, 8If Jehovah delight in us, and he brought us to this land, and he gave it to us; a land which it flowing with milk and honey. 9But against Jehovah ye shall not rebel, and ye shall not be afraid of the people of the land; for they our bread: for their shadow removed from them and Jehovah with us; ye shall not be afraid of them. 10And all the assembly will say to stone them with stones. And the glory of Jehovah was seen in the tent of appointment to all the sons of Israel. 11And Jehovah will say to Moses How long will this people reject me and how long will they not believe in me by all the signs which I did in the midst of them? 12I will strike them with death, and I will destroy them, and I will make thee into a great nation, and strong above them. 13And Moses will say to Jehovah, And the Egyptians heard, for thou didst bring up with thy strength this people from the midst of them; 14And they will say to those dwelling upon this land; they heard that thou Jehovah art in the midst of this people who wert seen eye to eye; thou Jehovah and thy cloud stood over them, and in a pillar of cloud thou goest before them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. 15And didst thou kill this people as one man, and the nations spake who heard thy fame, saying, 16Because Jehovah will not be able to bring in this people to the land which he sware to them, he will slay them in the desert 17And now shall the strength of the Lord be great, as thou spakest, saying, 18Jehovah, slow to anger and of great kindness, lifting up iniquity and transgression and cleansing, will not cleanse; striking the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third, and upon the fourth. 19Forgive now the sin of this people according to thy great kindness, and as thou didst lift up to this people, and even till now. 20And Jehovah will say, I pardoned according to thy word: 21But yet I live, and the glory of Jehovah shall fill all the earth. 22For all the men having seen my glory and my signs which I did in Egypt and in the desert, and they will try me this ten times, they heard not to my voice. 23If they shall see the land which I sware to their fathers, and all despising me shall not see it 24And my servant Caleb, because another spirit was with him, and he will follow after me, and I brought him into the land which he went there; and his seed shall inherit it. 25And the Amalekites and the Canaanites will dwell in the valley. Tomorrow turn ye; they shall remove for you into the desert the way of the sea of sedge. 26And Jehovah will speak to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27How long for this evil assembly, that they are murmuring against me? the murmurings of the sons of Israel which they are murmuring against me, I heard. 28Say to them, I live, says Jehovah, if not as ye spake in mine ears, so will I do to you: 29In this desert shall your carcasses fall; and all of you being reviewed according to all your number, from the son of twenty years and above, who murmured against me. 30If ye shall come in to the land which I lifted up my hand for you to dwell in it, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun. 31And your little ones which ye said shall be for a prey, and I brought them in, and they shall know the land which ye rejected 32And you, your carcasses shall fall in this desert 33And your sons shall be fed in the desert forty years, and bear your fornications till your carcasses be finished in the desert 34According to the number of days which ye searched out the land, forty days, a day a year, a day for a year, shall ye your iniquities; forty years, and ye knew my withdrawal. 35I Jehovah spake, if not, I will do this to all this evil assembly setting up against me: in this desert shall they be finished, and there shall they die. 36And the men whom Moses sent to search out the land, and they will turn back and will murmur against him to all the assembly, to bring forth slander upon the land. 37And the men bringing forth evil slander of the land shall die by the blow before Jehovah. 38And Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, lived, from those men going to search out the land. 39And Moses will speak these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people will mourn greatly. 40And they will rise early in the morning, and will go up to the head of the mountain, saying, Behold us, and we will go up to the place which Jehovah said: for we sinned. 41And Moses will say, Wherefore this you are passing by the mouth of Jehovah? And it shall not prosper. 42Ye shall not go up, for Jehovah is not in the midst of you; and shall ye not be struck before your enemies? 43For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye fell by the sword: for ye turned back from after Jehovah, and Jehovah will not be with you. 44And they will act proudly to go up to the head of the mountain: mid the ark of the covenant of Jehovah and Moses departed not out of the midst of the camp. 45And Amalek came down, and the Canaanite, he dwelling in the mountain, and he will smite them, and will beat them, even to Hormah.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 THE PEOPLE MURMUR AT THE SPIES' REPORT. (Num. 14:1-45)
all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried--Not literally all, for there were some exceptions.
2 Would God that we had died in Egypt--Such insolence to their generous leaders, and such base ingratitude to God, show the deep degradation of the Israelites, and the absolute necessity of the decree that debarred that generation from entering the promised land [
Num 14:29-
Num 14:35]. They were punished by their wishes being granted to die in that wilderness [
Heb 3:17;
Jude 1:5]. A leader to reconduct them to Egypt is spoken of (
Neh 9:17) as actually nominated. The sinfulness and insane folly of their conduct are almost incredible. Their conduct, however, is paralleled by too many among us, who shrink from the smallest difficulties and rather remain slaves to sin than resolutely try to surmount the obstacles that lie in their way to the Canaan above.
5 Moses and Aaron fell on their faces--as humble and earnest suppliants--either to the people, entreating them to desist from so perverse a design; or rather, to God, as the usual and only refuge from the violence of that tumultuous and stiff-necked rabble--a hopeful means of softening and impressing their hearts.
6 Joshua . . . and Caleb, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes--The two honest spies testified their grief and horror, in the strongest manner, at the mutiny against Moses and the blasphemy against God; while at the same time they endeavored, by a truthful statement, to persuade the people of the ease with which they might obtain possession of so desirable a country, provided they did not, by their rebellion and ingratitude, provoke God to abandon them.
8 a land flowing with milk and honey--a general expression, descriptive of a rich and fertile country. The two articles specified were among the principal products of the Holy Land.
9 their defence is departed--Hebrew, "their shadow." The Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of Persia are called "the shadow of God," "the refuge of the world." So that the meaning of the clause, "their defence is departed from them," is, that the favor of God was now lost to those whose iniquities were full (
Gen 15:16), and transferred to the Israelites.
10 the glory of the Lord appeared--It was seasonably manifested on this great emergency to rescue His ambassadors from their perilous situation.
12 the Lord said, . . . I will smite them with the pestilence--not a final decree, but a threatening, suspended, as appeared from the issue, on the intercession of Moses and the repentance of Israel.
17 let the power of my Lord be great--be magnified.
21 all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord--This promise, in its full acceptation, remains to be verified by the eventual and universal prevalence of Christianity in the world. But the terms were used restrictively in respect to the occasion, to the report which would spread over all the land of the "terrible things in righteousness" [
Ps 65:5] which God would do in the infliction of the doom described, to which that rebellious race was now consigned.
22 ten times--very frequently.
24 my servant Caleb--Joshua was also excepted, but he is not named because he was no longer in the ranks of the people, being a constant attendant on Moses.
because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully--Under the influence of God's Spirit, Caleb was a man of bold, generous, heroic courage, above worldly anxieties and fears.
25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley)--that is, on the other side of the Idumean mountain, at whose base they were then encamped. Those nomad tribes had at that time occupied it with a determination to oppose the further progress of the Hebrew people. Hence God gave the command that they seek a safe and timely retreat into the desert, to escape the pursuit of those resolute enemies, to whom, with their wives and children, they would fall a helpless prey because they had forfeited the presence and protection of God. This verse forms an important part of the narrative and should be freed from the parenthetical form which our English translators have given it.
30 save Caleb . . . and Joshua--These are specially mentioned, as honorable exceptions to the rest of the scouts, and also as the future leaders of the people. But it appears that some of the old generation did not join in the mutinous murmuring, including in that number the whole order of the priests (
Josh 14:1).
34 ye shall know my breach of promise--that is, in consequence of your violation of the covenant betwixt you and Me, by breaking the terms of it, it shall be null and void on My part, as I shall withhold the blessings I promised in that covenant to confer on you on condition of your obedience.
36 those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord--Ten of the spies struck dead on the spot--either by the pestilence or some other judgment. This great and appalling mortality clearly betokened the hand of the Lord.
40 they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain--Notwithstanding the tidings that Moses communicated and which diffused a general feeling of melancholy and grief throughout the camp, the impression was of very brief continuance. They rushed from one extreme of rashness and perversity to another, and the obstinacy of their rebellious spirit was evinced by their active preparations to ascend the hill, notwithstanding the divine warning they had received not to undertake that enterprise.
for we have sinned--that is, realizing our sin, we now repent of it, and are eager to do as Caleb and Joshua exhorted us--or, as some render it, though we have sinned, we trust God will yet give us the land of promise. The entreaties of their prudent and pious leader, who represented to them that their enemies, scaling the other side of the valley, would post themselves on the top of the hill before them, were disregarded. How strangely perverse the conduct of the Israelites, who, shortly before, were afraid that, though their Almighty King was with them, they could not get possession of the land; and yet now they act still more foolishly in supposing that, though God were not with them, they could expel the inhabitants by their unaided efforts. The consequences were such as might have been anticipated. The Amalekites and Canaanites, who had been lying in ambuscade expecting their movement, rushed down upon them from the heights and became the instruments of punishing their guilty rebellion.
45 even unto Hormah--The name was afterwards given to that place in memory of the immense slaughter of the Israelites on this occasion.