Numbers 14:26-38 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Numbers 14:26-38 (P). The Condemnation of the People to Forty Years-' Wanderings in the Wilderness. This passage comes from P, being parallel to, but divergent from, 11- 25, for both Joshua, and Caleb (not the latter alone, as in Numbers 14:24) are exempted from the sentence of exclusion (cf. Numbers 14:6). The subsequent history assumes that exemption was extended to Eleazar also (see Numbers 32:28; Joshua 14:1; Joshua 24:33).

Numbers 14:31. know: read (with LXX), inherit.

Numbers 14:33. wanderers: better (with mg.), shepherds (living as nomads and not as occupiers of land). forty years: a conventional figure equivalent to a generation (cf. Judges 3:11; Judges 5:31). whoredoms: i.e. acts of mistrust (not of idolatry, as usual, Ezekiel 23:11, Hosea 2:5).

Numbers 14:37. the plague. Paul, who alludes to the occurrence in 1 Corinthians 10:10, substitutes the destroyer, thus attributing the infliction of the plague to an angelic agent (as is done in the case of the pestilence sent to punish David's offence in 1 Chronicles 21:12; 1 Chronicles 21:15).

Numbers 14:39-45. An Abortive Invasion of Canaan. This comes from JE.

Numbers 14:40. the mountain: cf. Numbers 13:17.

Numbers 14:44. the ark: this was wont to accompany the army as a palladium: cf. Numbers 10:35 f.

Numbers 14:45. Hormah: afterwards reckoned in the territory of Judah or of Simeon (Joshua 15:30; Joshua 19:4).

Related Commentaries of Numbers 14:26

Numbers 14:26-38

26 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,

27 How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.

28 Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:

29 Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,

30 Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I swareb to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

31 But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.

32 But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.

33 And your children shall wanderc in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

34 After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

35 I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

36 And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land,

37 Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

38 But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still.