Numbers 14:20-38--God Promises Judgment

Numbers 14:20-38
English Standard Version

God Promises Judgment
20 Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. 21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. 25 Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”

​26 And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27 “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. 28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35 I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

36 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land-- 37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. 38 Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

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God renders His verdict.  While He pardons them, they are not to escape the consequences of their rebellion--for they have seen His glory and the signs and wonders that were done to secure their redemption from exile, and, yet they put God to the test and disobeyed Him.  God says that none of them that have done this will see the land that was sworn to their forefathers.  But what about those that did not join in the rebellion?  What about Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua and Caleb?  Does that mean that there is still hope for them?  God partially answers that by saying that Caleb and his descendants will inherit and posses the land because he has a different kind of spirit than the rest.

God hears the fears of the people that they cannot defeat the giants, and it might be fair to say that without faith they could not, for we see many places in the Gospels where Jesus desired to do a mighty work in a place but could not do so because the people lacked faith.  So, God instructs the people to turn around and go back through the wilderness and head back towards the Red Sea--the very place which they crossed over to come out of Egypt--perhaps some of the people even imagined that Moses was taking them back like they asked.

God then speaks to Moses and Aaron and tells them to give a message to the people--that He has heard their grumblings against Him and that He should not have to tolerate it anymore.  So, none of that generation that was counted in the census (those twenty years old and older), with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, would die wondering in the wilderness and would never enter the Promised Land.  God does not hold the sins of the fathers against the children though and says He would allow all the "little ones" (I assume that to be all those that were not counted in the census) entry into the Promised Land so that they could claim it as an inheritance.  However the children would suffer for the sins of their parents by being forced to wander in the wilderness for 40 years and being made to be nomadic shepherds instead of being allowed to grow up in cities and with farms.

The Lord then swears by Himself that He will surely bring this all to pass.  While we don't see it yet, notice that neither Aaron nor Moses are included in the exclusion of the people that would be allowed to enter the Promised Land.  We'll find out why later, but God made it clear that only Joshua and Caleb were going to be exempted from this punishment--a year of wandering for every day that the spies spent in the land.

God then executes immediate judgment on the 10 who gave the bad report and initiated the rebellion.  All ten of them died by a plague before the Lord.  It doesn't specify what kind of plague it was, but I'm sure it was something bad that would have made the next generation learn not to put God to the test.  The text repeats for us one more time, in case we missed it, that only Joshua and Caleb were spared because they had not rebelled along with the others--so we start to see that these two men will become central figures in the story.  We have seen Joshua a bit already, but we will see a lot more of him going forward, and we haven't see the last of Caleb either.