A Generation Refuses the Land and Receives the Wilderness

“Lifted up their voice” is the full-throated cry of public mourning. The Talmud (Taanit 29a) ties this night to the ninth of Av, the date on which both Temples later fell: “you wept for nothing, and I will fix for you a weeping for generations.”

“Murmured” is lun, the verb of grumbling from Exodus 15–17, and it runs through this chapter until the sentence in verses 27–36 is built from it. “Would God” translates lu, “if only”: a wish, with two places offered for the death they want.

“Prey” is baz, plunder, what a raiding army carries off, women and children taken as spoil. The accusation names the LORD directly for the first time in this crisis: it is he who has brought them here to fall.

“Make a captain” is literally “let us give a head”, rosh, the word that described the twelve scouts in 13:3. Nehemiah 9:17 remembers the proposal as though it were carried out: they “appointed a captain to return to their bondage”.

Falling on the face is the posture Moses and Aaron take again when Korah gathers the crowd in 16:4 and 16:22, and at Meribah in 20:6. Here it is done “before all the assembly”, in full view of the people calling for another leader.

Rending the clothes is the gesture of grief and horror, as Jacob tore his for Joseph in Genesis 37:34. In 13:30 Caleb spoke alone; now Joshua is named first beside him, and the two scouts stand against the other ten.

“Exceeding good” is tovah meod meod, “very, very good”, with the word doubled. The two scouts answer the “evil report” of 13:32 with the plainest opposite the language allows: the land they walked through is good.

“Delight in us” is chafets, to take pleasure in, so everything hangs on the LORD’s favour, not Israel’s strength. “Give it us” repeats the LORD’s own words in 13:2, “which I give”, and milk and honey is named for the third time in two chapters.

“Their defence” is literally “their shade”, tsillam, the protection a shadow gives in desert heat. Psalm 121:5 uses the same image, “the LORD is thy shade”. The shade over Canaan has gone; the one over Israel is the LORD with them.

Stoning was execution by the whole community, every hand taking part. The glory of the LORD appears at the tent of meeting, as it will again when Korah’s crowd gathers in 16:19 and 16:42 and at the waters of Meribah in 20:6.

“Provoke” is naats, to spurn or despise, used again in verse 23 and in 16:30. “Believe” is heemin, the verb of Genesis 15:6, where Abram “believed in the LORD”. The doubled “how long” asks for a limit the LORD says has already been passed.

“Disinherit” is horish, to dispossess, the verb usually used for driving out the Canaanites: the LORD proposes to do to Israel what Israel was sent to do. The offer to make a nation of Moses repeats Exodus 32:10, after the golden calf.

The Hebrew here is broken and hard to construe, which the KJV smooths with a parenthesis. The first word of Moses’ answer is Egypt: the place the people wanted to return to is the first audience he names.

“Face to face” here is literally “eye to eye”, ayin beayin, a phrase found elsewhere only in Isaiah 52:8. Moses assumes the news of the exodus has already reached Canaan, as Rahab later confirms in Joshua 2:10: “we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea”.

“As one man” means at a single stroke, the whole people struck down together. “The fame of thee” is shimakha, what has been heard of thee, from the verb of hearing: the nations have heard, and the question is what they will say next.

The word Moses puts in the nations’ mouths is inability, from yakhol, the verb the scouts used in 13:31: “We be not able.” The people said they could not take the land; the nations would say the LORD could not bring them in.

“My Lord” is Adonai, not the divine name. In Hebrew scrolls the first letter of “be great”, yigdal, is written oversized, one of the few enlarged letters of the Masoretic text. “As thou hast spoken” points back to the words of Exodus 34.

Moses quotes Exodus 34:6–7 but shortens it. He leaves out “merciful and gracious”, “abundant in goodness and truth” and “keeping mercy for thousands”, and he keeps the clause about visiting iniquity. What he quotes is the part that fits a people already guilty.

“Pardon” is salach, a forgiveness the Old Testament ascribes to God alone. The second verb, “hast forgiven”, is nasa, to lift or carry, sin borne away. “From Egypt even until now” makes the whole journey a record of pardons already given.

“According to thy word” answers Moses in his own terms. The line “I have pardoned according to thy word” is recited in the synagogue on the eve of the Day of Atonement, after Moses’ plea of the verse before.

“As truly as I live” is the oath chai ani, God swearing by his own life, the first time Scripture puts that oath in his mouth. Habakkuk 2:14 takes up the second half: “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD”.

“Tempted” is nissah, to put to the test, the verb that named Massah in Exodus 17:7, where they “tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?” “Seen my glory” is exact: the glory had just appeared before them all in verse 10.

“Surely they shall not see” is an oath formula in the Hebrew, literally “if they shall see”, a curse left unfinished and meaning certainly not. “Provoked” is the naats of verse 11 again. Deuteronomy 1:35 repeats the oath when Moses retells it.

“Followed me fully” is literally “filled after me”, an idiom used again of Caleb and Joshua in 32:12, and in 1 Kings 11:6 of David, whom Solomon did not match. “Whereinto he went” is Hebron, which Joshua 14:13–14 gives to Caleb.

The bracketed note, Amalekites and Canaanites “in the valley”, sets up verses 43–45, where the same peoples come down from “that hill”. “The way of the Red sea” here is probably the road toward the Gulf of Aqaba, south and east, away from Canaan.

A second speech, now to Moses and Aaron together, the two who fell on their faces in verse 5. The first speech, to Moses alone, gave the verdict; this one gives its terms to be told to the people.

The opening is elliptical in Hebrew, literally “How long for this evil congregation”, and the KJV supplies “shall I bear with”. The murmuring is named three times in one verse; “murmurings”, telunot, is the word Exodus 16:7–12 used over the manna.

“In mine ears” answers the complaint that was “evil in the ears of the LORD” in 11:1 and “in the ears of the LORD” in 11:18. The oath chai ani of verse 21 is sworn a second time, now over the people’s sentence.

“Carcases” is pegarim, corpses, the harsh word for bodies fallen where they lay. “Numbered” is paqad, the verb of the census in chapter 1. When the second census is taken in 26:64, the book checks the sentence: not one man of the first count remained.

“Doubtless ye shall not come” is the same oath form as verse 23, “if ye come”. “Sware” is literally “lifted up my hand”, the gesture of oath-taking, as in Exodus 6:8. Caleb is named first here, where Joshua led in verse 6.

“Little ones” is taf, the children too young to march, the dependants of the camp. “Despised” is maas, rejected as worthless. Deuteronomy 1:39 adds that these children “had no knowledge between good and evil”, too young to share the refusal.

The pronoun is emphatic in Hebrew, “but you”, set against the children of verse 31. The verse repeats verse 29’s fallen carcases almost exactly, and the doubled sentence leaves no room for exceptions beyond the two already named.

“Wander” is literally “be shepherds”, roim, a generation living as herders on desert pasture. “Whoredoms” is zenut, faithlessness, the covenant pictured as a betrayed marriage. Counted from the exodus, the forty years leave thirty-eight still to run, as Deuteronomy 2:14 reckons them.

The reckoning of a day for a year returns in Ezekiel 4:6, where the prophet lies on his side forty days for Judah: “I have appointed thee each day for a year.” Forty days of looking are paid for in forty years of not entering.

“Gathered together” is noadim, met by appointment, from the root of the tent of meeting, ohel moed: the congregation has assembled, but against God. “Consumed” is tamam, to be finished or completed, a sentence that runs until the generation is spent.

The Hebrew verb is causative: these men made the whole congregation murmur. The verse opens on their commission, “which Moses sent”, and closes on what they did with it, the same slander of 13:32.

“Plague” is maggefah, a stroke or blow, the word for the plagues after Korah in 16:48 and at Baal-peor in 25:9. “Before the LORD” places their death in his presence, perhaps at the tent itself. Their names from chapter 13 are not repeated.

“Lived still” is a single Hebrew verb, chayu, “they lived”. Of the twelve who walked the land, two remain, and 26:65 names the same two as the only men left from the whole first count.

“Mourned greatly” is hitabbelu, the verb of mourning for the dead: the people grieve as though they were already buried. The report comes through Moses as “these sayings”, the two speeches of verses 20–35.

Rising early is the first thing in the chapter the people do willingly. The hill country they had refused in 13:17 is now where they climb. “Lo, we be here” is hinnennu, the plural of Abraham’s hineni, “here am I”, a readiness offered a day too late.

“Transgress” is avar, to cross over, the verb of passing through: they are crossing the command itself. “Prosper” is tsalach, to succeed, the word Genesis 39:3 uses when the LORD made all Joseph did “to prosper in his hand”.

“The LORD is not among you” answers verse 14, where Moses told God the nations knew “that thou LORD art among this people”. The presence that was the reason to enter is now the reason not to go.

“Fall by the sword” is exactly the fate the people feared in verse 3, now warned of for the opposite choice. “Turned away” is shavtem, from shuv, the verb of “return into Egypt” in verse 3: they have turned back after all.

“Presumed” is yapilu, a rare verb, perhaps “swelled up” or “were heedless”, whose root appears again only in Habakkuk 2:4, “his soul which is lifted up”. The Hebrew has them climb “to the top of the mountain”, the same words as verse 40.

“Discomfited” is katat, to beat to pieces. Hormah means “devoted” or “destruction”, from cherem; in 21:3 Israel devotes the same region and the name is explained. Deuteronomy 1:44 says the pursuers chased them “as bees do”.