‘ For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the people who were men of war, who came out of Egypt, were consumed because they did not obey the voice of YHWH, to whom YHWH swore that he would not let them see the land which YHWH swore to their fathers that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.'
This is to explain the situation for those unaware of it. All who were over twenty years old at the first abortive entry into Canaan thirty eight years before, had been sentenced to die in the wilderness, with one or two notable exceptions (Numbers 14:28-35). This was because of their disobedience on that occasion, and their refusal to enter the land of Canaan when God told them to. Thus He had sworn that they would not see the land which had been promised to them when they left Egypt (Numbers 14:23). ‘Milk and honey' represented staple foods and sweetness, a sign of the desirability of the land. But it was only a desirable land when it had sufficient rain. Thus its desirability depended on God's provision.