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.
After the number of the days in which ye searched the land ... forty days, each day for a year. There was thus a correspondence between the time of their sin and that of their punishment. But this circumstance does not afford ground for the theory (Birk's 'Elements of Sac. Prophecy,' p. 338; Faber, 'Provincial Letters,' vol. 1:,
p. 124) that the term day stands in the prophetical books for the period year, nor that a typical day represents a real year (cf. Ezekiel 4:4; Daniel 9:24).
Shall ye bear your iniquities. To bear one's sin or iniquity is equivalent to the suffering of the punishment due to sin (cf. Numbers 18:22; Numbers 18:32; Exodus 28:43; Leviticus 19:8).
My breach of promise - i:e., that in consequence of your violation of the covenant between 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. х Wiyda`tem (H3045) 'et (H854) tªnuw'aatiy (H8569), and ye shall know my withdrawal, my alienation, my holding back.] 'The translation in the present King James Version is harsh, and merely conjectural, not warranted by the Hebrew original. Some of our older English translators had a more inoffensive and a juster rendering than our last version here happens to have. Coverdale's Bible of 1535 renders, "ye may know what it is, when I withdraw my hand." Matthewe's Bible of 1537 has, "ye shall fele my vengeance." The Great Bible of 1539, "ye shall know my displeasure. The Geneva translators of 1560 first ventured to say," ye shall fele my breach of promise;" but then they added a marginal note to soften it-namely, "whether my promise is true or no." Dr. Parker's Bible of 1568 altered it into, "ye shall know my breach of promise," leaving no note at all in the margin; and the last translation, following Parker's, reads the text as before, only throwing in another softer version into the margin-namely, "altering of my purpose"' (Waterlands' 'Scripture Vindicated'). The Hebrew word occurs only in one other passage, namely, Job 33:10, where it is rendered by our translators, "occasion against" ('disallowances against me') (Carey's 'Job'). [The Septuagint has: gnoosesthe ton thumon tees orgees mou. Jerome, in the Vulgate, has ultionem meam. The Septuagint has in the passage of Job referred to, mempson, querelam, complaint.]