Numbers 14
14
The People Complain
1All night long the people cried out in distress. 2They complained against Moses and Aaron, and said, “It would have been better to die in Egypt or even here in the wilderness! 3Why is the LORD taking us into that land? We will be killed in battle, and our wives and children will be captured. Wouldn't it be better to go back to Egypt?” 4So they said to one another, “Let's choose a leader and go back to Egypt!”
5Then Moses and Aaron bowed to the ground in front of all the people. 6And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the spies, tore their clothes in sorrow 7and said to the people, “The land we explored is an excellent land. 8If the LORD is pleased with us, he will take us there and give us that rich and fertile land. 9#Heb 3.16Do not rebel against the LORD and don't be afraid of the people who live there. We will conquer them easily. The LORD is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don't be afraid.” 10The whole community was threatening to stone them to death, but suddenly the people saw the dazzling light of the LORD's presence appear over the tent.
Moses Prays for the People
11The LORD said to Moses, “How much longer will these people reject me? How much longer will they refuse to trust in me, even though I have performed so many miracles among them? 12I will send an epidemic and destroy them, but I will make you the father of a nation that is larger and more powerful than they are!”
13 #
Ex 32.11–14
But Moses said to the LORD, “You brought these people out of Egypt by your power. When the Egyptians hear what you have done to your people, 14they will tell it to the people who live in this land. These people have already heard that you, LORD, are with us, that you are plainly seen when your cloud stops over us, and that you go before us in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 15Now if you kill all your people, the nations who have heard of your fame will say 16that you killed your people in the wilderness because you were not able to bring them into the land you promised to give them. 17So now LORD, I pray, show us your power and do what you promised when you said, 18#Ex 20.5–6; 34.6–7; Deut 5.9–10; 7.9–10‘I, the LORD, am not easily angered, and I show great love and faithfulness and forgive sin and rebellion. Yet I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.’ 19And now, LORD, according to the greatness of your unchanging love, forgive, I pray, the sin of these people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”
20The LORD answered, “I will forgive them, as you have asked. 21#Heb 3.18But I promise that as surely as I live and as surely as my presence fills the earth, 22none of these people will live to enter that land. They have seen the dazzling light of my presence and the miracles that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have tried my patience over and over again and have refused to obey me. 23They will never enter the land which I promised to their ancestors. None of those who have rejected me will ever enter it. 24#Josh 14.9–12But because my servant Caleb has a different attitude and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land which he explored, and his descendants will possess the land 25in whose valleys the Amalekites and the Canaanites now live. Turn back tomorrow and go into the wilderness in the direction of the Gulf of Aqaba.”
The Lord Punishes the People for Complaining
26The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 27“How much longer are these wicked people going to complain against me? I have heard enough of these complaints! 28Now give them this answer: ‘I swear that as surely as I live, I will do to you just what you have asked. I, the LORD, have spoken. 29#Heb 3.17You will die and your corpses will be scattered across this wilderness. Because you have complained against me, none of you over twenty years of age will enter that land. 30I promised to let you live there, but not one of you will, except Caleb and Joshua. 31You said that your children would be captured, but I will bring them into the land that you rejected, and it will be their home. 32You will die here in this wilderness. 33#Acts 7.36Your children will wander in the wilderness for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last one of you dies. 34You will suffer the consequences of your sin for forty years, one year for each of the forty days you spent exploring the land. You will know what it means to have me against you! 35I swear that I will do this to you wicked people who have gathered together against me. Here in the wilderness every one of you will die. I, the LORD, have spoken.’ ”
36-37The men Moses had sent to explore the land brought back a false report which caused the people to complain against the LORD. And so the LORD struck them with a disease, and they died. 38Of the twelve spies only Joshua and Caleb survived.
The First Attempt to Invade the Land
(Deut 1.41–46)
39When Moses told the Israelites what the LORD had said, they mourned bitterly. 40Early the next morning they started out to invade the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go to the place which the LORD told us about. We admit that we have sinned.”
41But Moses said, “Then why are you disobeying the LORD now? You will not succeed! 42Don't go. The LORD is not with you, and your enemies will defeat you. 43When you face the Amalekites and the Canaanites, you will die in battle; the LORD will not be with you, because you have refused to follow him.”
44Yet they still dared to go up into the hill country, even though neither the LORD's Covenant Box nor Moses left the camp. 45Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived there attacked and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hormah.
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Numbers 14: GNBDK
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Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.
Numbers 14
14
1All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. 2All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness! 3Why does Yahweh bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into Egypt?” 4They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”
5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
6Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes. 7They spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. 8If Yahweh delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us: a land which flows with milk and honey. 9Only don’t rebel against Yahweh, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and Yahweh is with us. Don’t fear them.”
10But all the congregation threatened to stone them with stones.
Yahweh’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the children of Israel. 11Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them? 12I will strike them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people in your might from among them. 14They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you Yahweh are among this people; for you Yahweh are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. 15Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying, 16‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’ 17Now please let the power of the Lord#14:17 The word translated “Lord” is “Adonai.” be great, according as you have spoken, saying, 18‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’ 19Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
20Yahweh said, “I have pardoned according to your word; 21but in very deed—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with Yahweh’s glory— 22because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; 23surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it. 24But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went. His offspring shall possess it. 25Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” 26Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, which they complain against me. 28Tell them, ‘As I live, says Yahweh, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. 29Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, 30surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. 31But I will bring in your little ones that you said should be captured or killed, and they shall know the land which you have rejected. 32But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness. 34After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’ 35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”
36The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land, 37even those men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before Yahweh. 38But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who went to spy out the land.
39Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. 40They rose up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Behold, we are here, and will go up to the place which Yahweh has promised; for we have sinned.”
41Moses said, “Why now do you disobey the commandment of Yahweh, since it shall not prosper? 42Don’t go up, for Yahweh isn’t among you; that way you won’t be struck down before your enemies. 43For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and you will fall by the sword because you turned back from following Yahweh; therefore Yahweh will not be with you.”
44But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain. Nevertheless, the ark of Yahweh’s covenant and Moses didn’t depart out of the camp. 45Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah.
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