Numbers 14

The people weep and rebel

¹Then the whole congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. ²All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “We wish we had died in the land of Egypt, or else died here in this wilderness! ³What is the LORD doing, bringing us into this land just so we can be killed in battle? Our wives and little ones will be carried off as spoil. Would going back to Egypt not be better for us?” ⁴And they said to one another, “Let us put someone at our head and go back to Egypt.” ⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell face down in front of the whole assembly of the congregation of the Israelites. ⁶Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the men who had explored the land, tore their clothes. ⁷They said to the whole congregation of the Israelites, “The land we traveled through to explore is a good land, very good indeed. ⁸If the LORD takes delight in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land where milk and honey flow. ⁹Just do not rebel against the LORD. And as for you, have no fear of the people who live in the land; we will eat them up like bread. The shelter over them has been taken away, while the LORD is with us. So do not fear them!” ¹⁰But the whole congregation talked of stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.

Moses pleads for the people

¹¹The LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people scorn me? How long will they go on not believing in me, when I have done so many signs among them? ¹²I will strike them down with disease and take away their inheritance, and from you I will make a nation greater and mightier than they are.” ¹³But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it! It was by your power that you brought this people up out from among them, ¹⁴and they will tell it to those who live in this land. These have heard that you, the LORD, are present among this people; that you, the LORD, show yourself to them openly, eye to eye; that your cloud rests above them; and that you lead the way before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.^{a 15}If you now kill this people all at once, the nations that have heard the report about you will say, ¹⁶‘It was because the LORD was unable to bring this people into the land he had sworn to give them that he butchered them in the wilderness.’ ¹⁷So now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be shown to be great, as you have declared: ¹⁸‘The LORD is slow to grow angry and rich in faithful love, forgiving wrongdoing and rebellion. Yet he will never acquit the guilty; he brings the wrongdoing of parents upon their children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ ¹⁹Please pardon the wrongdoing of this people, as befits the greatness of your faithful love, just as you have forgiven this people all the way from Egypt until now.” ²⁰The LORD answered, “I have pardoned them, as you asked. ²¹Nevertheless, as surely as I live, and as surely as the glory of the LORD will fill the whole earth,^{b 22}all the men who saw my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not listened to my voice,^{c 23}not one of them will see the land I swore to give their fathers; none of those who scorned me will see it. ²⁴But my servant Caleb is different: there is another spirit in him, and he has followed me with all his heart. So I will bring him into the land that he entered, and his descendants will take possession of it. ²⁵Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley. Tomorrow turn around and set out into the wilderness along the road to the Red Sea.”

Forty years in the wilderness

²⁶Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said, ²⁷“How long must I put up with this evil congregation that keeps grumbling against me? I have heard the complaints the Israelites are making against me. ²⁸Tell them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, I will treat you just as you have spoken in my hearing: ²⁹Here in this wilderness your bodies will fall, all of you who were enrolled, the whole number of you from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me. ³⁰You will certainly not enter the land that I raised my hand and swore to give you as a home, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. ³¹But your little ones, who you said would be carried off as spoil, I will bring in, and they will come to know the land you have rejected. ³²But as for you, your bodies will fall in this wilderness. ³³Your children will roam the wilderness as shepherds for forty years, bearing the burden of your unfaithfulness, until every one of your bodies has fallen in the wilderness. ³⁴You spent forty days exploring the land; for each day you will bear your guilt for a year, forty years in all, and you will learn what my opposition means.^{d 35}I, the LORD, have spoken. I will surely do this to this whole evil congregation that has banded together against me: in this wilderness they will come to their end, and here they will die.’” ³⁶As for the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who came back and made the whole congregation grumble against him by spreading a bad report about the land,^{e 37}those men who spread the evil report about the land died by a plague in the presence of the LORD. ³⁸But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive, the only two left of the men who had gone to explore the land. ³⁹Moses reported these words to all the Israelites, and the people grieved deeply. ⁴⁰They got up early in the morning and went up toward the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are! We will go up to the place the LORD spoke of, for we have sinned.” ⁴¹But Moses said, “Why are you doing this, going against what the LORD has commanded? It will not work. ⁴²Do not go up, for the LORD is not in your midst; do not let your enemies strike you down. ⁴³The Amalekites and the Canaanites are there ahead of you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from following the LORD, the LORD will not be with you.” ⁴⁴But they recklessly went on up toward the heights of the hill country, though neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses left the camp.^{f 45}Then the Amalekites and Canaanites living in that hill country swept down on them, struck them and cut them to pieces as far as Hormah.