Chapter Fourteen

The uprising of the people. — Condemnation to forty years of wandering in the deserts. — Death of the ten spies. — Unauthorized invasion into the Negeb. — Failure.

Numbers 14:5. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the entire assembled congregation of the sons of Israel. They fell on their faces before the tent, in the presence of the entire congregation.

Numbers 14:19. Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have pardoned this people from Egypt until now. “Not from fear of losing his authority,” St. Ephrem the Syrian remarks, “but from love does Moses intercede for the people: for he was promised that if the Hebrews were destroyed, he would become leader of an even greater people” (Exod 32:10; Num 14:12; Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on the Book of Numbers, chapter XIV).

Numbers 14:22. All the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, “Have tested me these ten times.” The word “ten” can be understood both as a generalization of many repeated occasions, and as a reference to the following ten instances of the people’s uprising: 1) at the Red Sea; 2) at Marah; 3) in the wilderness of Zin; 4) when the law about not leaving manna until morning was broken; 5) when the law about not gathering manna on the Sabbath was broken; 6) at Rephidim; 7) at Sinai; 8) at Taberah; 9) at Kibroth-hattaavah; 10) at Kadesh-barnea.

Numbers 14:23. Surely none of the people who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers; [but to your children, who are with you here, who do not yet know good and evil, to them I will give it, and they shall inherit it; but] none of those who provoked me shall see it; The crude, sensual, stiff-necked older generation of Hebrews, grown up under the influence of Egypt, proved incapable of carrying out the idea of the kingdom of Jehovah in the promised land, and therefore was deprived of it. Young Hebrews, who grew up in the wilderness under the continuous impact of tangible manifestations of God’s majesty, power, and goodness, will enter Canaan (Deut 8:2-5).

Numbers 14:24. 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; Below, in Num 14:30 which is discussed in this chapter, Joshua (son of Nun) is mentioned along with Caleb.

Numbers 14:37. The men who brought back the evil report about the land died by a plague before the Lord; “Died, struck down” by sudden death at the entrance of the tent. “Death struck the spies before others,” St. Ephrem the Syrian remarks, “because they barred the people from possessing the land so desired by them. By barring the door to the promised land, the spies opened the doors of Sheol to six hundred thousand people, who went down there after them” (Commentary on the Book of Numbers, chapter XIV).

Numbers 14:45. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them, pursuing them as far as Hormah, [and they returned to camp.] Hormah — the capital city of one of the Canaanite princes in the Negeb, north of Kadesh. Previously Hormah was called Zephath (Judg 1:17). The later name (Hormah) was given to the place when the Hebrews devoted Canaanite cities to destruction (Num 21:3; Judg 1:17).