Numbers 14

The Israelites' Rebellion and God's Judgment in the Wilderness

6 min read

1 And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said to them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
3 And why has the LORD brought us to this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
4 And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. ¶
6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
7 And they spoke to all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.
8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which flows with milk and honey.
9 Only rebel not you against the LORD, neither fear you the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. ¶
11 And the LORD said to Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be before they believe me, for all the signs which I have showed among them?
12 I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of you a greater nation and mightier than they. ¶
13 And Moses said to the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for you brought up this people in your might from among them;)
14 And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that you LORD are among this people, that you LORD are seen face to face, and that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. ¶
15 Now if you shall kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying,
16 Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.
17 And now, I beseech you, let the power of my LORD be great, according as you have spoken, saying,
18 The LORD is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.
19 Pardon, I beseech you, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your mercy, and as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
20 And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to your word:
21 But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.
22 Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not listened to my voice;
23 Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:
24 But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land into where he went; and his seed shall possess it.
25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelled in the valley.) Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea. ¶
26 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to 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 to them, As truly as I live, says the LORD, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you:
29 Your carcasses 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 you shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
31 But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.
32 But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness.
33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your prostitutions, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.
34 After the number of the days in which you searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you shall know my breach of promise.
35 I the LORD have said, I will surely do it to 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 on the land,
37 Even those men that did bring up the evil report on 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.
39 And Moses told these sayings to all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly. ¶
40 And they rose up early in the morning, and got them up into the top of the mountain, saying, See, we be here, and will go up to the place which the LORD has promised: for we have sinned.
41 And Moses said, Why now do you transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.
42 Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that you be not smitten before your enemies.
43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword: because you are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.
44 But they presumed to go up to the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.
45 Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelled in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even to Hormah.
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