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True Words Baptist Church — Revelation 21:5
BOOK 4 OF 66 · LAW · KING JAMES BIBLE

Numbers 14

Numbers book home•Chapter 14 of 36•45 verses
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REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Numbers 14 Overview

Numbers 14 records Israel’s decisive refusal to enter Canaan. The congregation weeps, speaks of returning to Egypt, and threatens Joshua and Caleb, while the glory of the LORD appears. Moses intercedes, appealing to God’s name and character. The LORD pardons in response to Moses’ plea yet still sentences the unbelieving generation to die in the wilderness, with forty years corresponding to the forty days of spying. When some later attempt to enter presumptuously without God, they are defeated.

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14Chapter
45Verses
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Before you read Numbers 14

Coming from

Numbers 13 ended with the majority spies discouraging the congregation despite Caleb’s call to trust God.

In this chapter

Israel rebels, Moses intercedes, the unbelieving generation is sentenced to wander, the ten spies die, and a presumptuous invasion fails.

Leads into

Numbers 15 gives laws anticipating eventual life in the land, showing that God’s larger promise continues despite this generation’s judgment.

Key understandingExplore deeper

This is the turning point of the wilderness generation. The people refuse the land, speak of returning to Egypt, and reject Joshua and Caleb. Moses intercedes by appealing to the LORD's revealed character and to how the nations would understand Israel's destruction. The LORD pardons, yet the counted adult generation is still sentenced to die in the wilderness over the coming years, while Joshua and Caleb are excepted. The chapter therefore sharply distinguishes forgiveness from removal of every temporal consequence and distinguishes faith from the later presumptuous attempt to invade without God's presence.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Truth 1

Unbelief turns longing for Egypt into open rejection of God’s promise.

Truth 2

Moses intercedes by appealing to the LORD’s revealed character and reputation among the nations.

Truth 3

Pardon does not always remove temporal consequences.

Truth 4

Joshua and Caleb are distinguished because they trusted and followed the LORD.

Truth 5

Presumption after disobedience is not the same as faith; moving without the LORD brings defeat.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Connection 1

Exodus 34:6–7 provides the divine character language Moses echoes in intercession.

Connection 2

Deuteronomy 1 retells this rebellion and the failed presumptuous invasion.

Connection 3

Psalm 95 warns later generations not to harden their hearts as in the wilderness.

Connection 4

Hebrews 3–4 applies the episode as a warning concerning unbelief and failure to enter rest.

Connection 5

1 Corinthians 10 uses wilderness judgments to warn Christians.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Keep this clear 1

The LORD’s pardon in verse 20 and wilderness judgment in following verses must be held together rather than treated as contradiction.

Keep this clear 2

The forty-year sentence is temporal covenant judgment on the exodus generation, not a formula for losing eternal life.

Keep this clear 3

The failed invasion shows that yesterday’s command cannot be obeyed presumptuously after God has changed the immediate instruction.

Read Numbers 14 watching for…

The people’s desire to return to Egypt.

Moses’ intercession.

The forty days/four decades correspondence.

The exception for Joshua and Caleb.

The difference between faith and presumption.

TWBC REVIEW STANDARD

Plain language. Scripture first. Fact distinguished from inference. No filler. No fake certainty. Designed to help you read the Bible itself.

Chapter outline5 sections
1-4The congregation weeps and wants to return to Egypt5-10Joshua and Caleb urge the people to trust the LORD11-19Moses intercedes when the LORD threatens judgment20-35The unbelieving generation is sentenced to forty years in the wilderness36-45The ten spies die and Israel’s attempted invasion fails
1

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.

2

And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!

3

And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?

4

And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

5

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

6

And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:

7

And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.

8

If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.

9

Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

10

But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.

11

And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?

12

I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.

13

And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;)

14

And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.

15

Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,

16

Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness.

17

And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,

18

The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

19

Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.

20

And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word:

21

But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.

22

Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;

23

Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:

24

But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.

25

(Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.

26

And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,

27

How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.

28

Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:

29

Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,

30

Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

31

But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.

32

But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.

33

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

34

After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

35

I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

36

And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land,

37

Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

38

But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still.

39

And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.

40

And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.

41

And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.

42

Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies.

43

For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.

44

But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.

45

Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.

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Numbers 14:9

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