Israel rebels at Kadesh-Barnea
14
📚✭And the whole congregation raised their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night. 2 📚✭And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and against Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this desert! 3 📚✭And why is the LORD bringing us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our children will become plunder. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?” 4 📚✭And they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader to return to Egypt”. 5 📚✭Then Moses and Aaron prostrated themselves 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, who were among those who explored the land, tore their clothes, 7 📚and spoke to all the company of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we went through to explore it, is an exceedingly good land. 8 📚If the LORD is pleased with us, then he will take us into this land, and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 📚Only do not rebel against the LORD, or be afraid of the people of the land, for they will be like bread for us. Their protection has left them, and the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them”.
10 📚But the whole congregation said to stone them✭ with stones. But the glory✭ of the LORD appeared on the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
God’s anger and Moses’ prayer
11 📚✭And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people treat me with contempt? And how long will it be before they believe me, in spite of all the signs which I have showed among them? 12 📚✭I will strike them down with a plague and disown them, and will make of you a greater and stronger nation than they”.
13 📚✭And Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear it (for with your strength you brought up this people from among them), 14 📚And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land; for they have heard that you, LORD, are among this people, that you, LORD, are seen face to face, and that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire. 15 📚Now if you kill all these people like one man, then the nations which have heard of your fame will speak, saying, 16 📚‘The LORD has killed this people in the desert because he was not able to bring them into the land which he swore to them.’
17 📚✭“And now, I beg you, let the power of my Lord be great, just as you have spoken, saying, 18 📚‘The LORD is slow to get angry and of great mercy, forgiving wickedness and transgression, yet not leaving sin unpunished, visiting the wrongdoing of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ 19 📚Pardon, I beg you, the wickedness of this people in accordance with the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt up until now”.
God decrees punishment
20 📚✭And the LORD said, “I have pardoned them in accordance with your word. 21 📚But as truly as I live, the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. 22 📚✭Because all those men who have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the desert have tempted me now these ten times, and have not listened to my voice, 23 📚they will by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor will any of those who treated me with contempt see it. 24 📚But as for my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit in him, and followed me fully, I will bring him into the land where he went, and his offspring will possess it. 25 📚✭Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley. Tomorrow turn and set out into the desert by way of the Red Sea”.
26 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27 📚“How long will I have to endure this evil congregation that complains against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel which they make against me. 28 📚Tell them this: As truly as I live, says the LORD, I will do to you just as you have spoken in my hearing; 29 📚your carcasses will fall in this desert, all of you men who were counted, the complete number of you twenty years old and more who have complained against me, 30 📚will not at all enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 📚But as for your little ones, whom you said would be plunder, I will take them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. 32 📚But as for you, your carcasses will fall in this wilderness. 33 📚And your children will wander in the wilderness for forty years, and bear your unfaithfulness, until your corpses end in the wilderness. 34 📚You will bear your sins for forty years, according to the number of days in which you explored the land, forty days, each day for a year, and you will know my opposition. 35 📚I the LORD have spoken; I will surely do these things to this whole evil congregation that is gathered together against me. They will be devoured in this wilderness and here they will die”.
36 📚✭And as for the men whom Moses sent to explore the land, who returned and caused the whole congregation to complain against him by bringing a bad report about the land, 37 📚those men who brought the bad report about the land died by a plague in the presence of the LORD. 38 📚But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among the men who went to explore the land, remained alive.
Israel disobeys again
39 📚And Moses told these things to all the children of Israel; and the people mourned greatly. 40 📚✭And they got up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “See, here we are, and we will go up to the place which the LORD has promised; for we have sinned”.
41 📚And Moses said, “Why are you now breaking the command of the LORD? But this will not succeed. 42 📚Do not go up, or you will be struck down before the face of your enemies, for the LORD is not among you. 43 📚For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the LORD, the LORD will not be with you”.