Numbers · 45 verses

Numbers 14

Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

The chapter

What happens here

Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

The LORD pardons the people, then bars them from the land; the children they feared losing are the ones who enter it, while their parents' bodies fall in the wilderness.

The congregation turns backvv. 1–19

The whole congregation spends the night weeping, then proposes the astonishing remedy of appointing a leader and returning to Egypt. Moses and Aaron fall facedown, while Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes and praise the land they have explored. The congregation responds by threatening to stone them, at which point the glory of the LORD appears at the Tent of Meeting. The LORD speaks of plague and destruction, but Moses asks pardon—not because the people have made a persuasive case, but because the nations will ask whether the LORD was unable to bring them into the land. It is a remarkably public argument, with reputation among the nations entering the wilderness discussion.

Pardon, but not the promised landvv. 20–38

The LORD says, “I have pardoned them as you requested,” and then gives the pardon a boundary: those who saw the signs and still tested and disobeyed will not see the land. Caleb alone is singled out for a different spirit and wholehearted following, while Joshua is named with him among the exceptions. The children whom the congregation had imagined becoming plunder will be brought into the land instead. The adults will bear forty years in the wilderness, matching the forty days spent spying it out. The spies who brought the bad report are struck down by a plague; Joshua and Caleb remain alive. Pardon, here, is not a cancellation of every consequence—a small sentence carrying a very large wilderness.

The unauthorised ascentvv. 39–45

The Israelites mourn, then rise early and announce that they will go after all. Moses tells them that this will not succeed: the LORD is not among them, and the Amalekites and Canaanites will face them. They go up anyway, leaving Moses and the ark of the covenant at the camp. The result is as brisk as the warning: the Amalekites and Canaanites come down, attack, and rout them all the way to Hormah. Having declined the land when invited, they now attempt it when forbidden, which is precisely the sort of timing that makes a wilderness story memorable.

The text

Read it

Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

Num 14:1Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.
Num 14:2All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and 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 wilderness!
Num 14:3Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
Num 14:4So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”
Num 14:5Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.
Num 14:6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes
Num 14:7and said to the whole congregation of Israel, “The land we passed through and explored is an exceedingly good land.
Num 14:8If the LORD delights in us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and He will give it to us.
Num 14:9Only do not rebel against the LORD, and do not be afraid of the people of the land, for they will be like bread for us. Their protection has been removed, and the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them!”
Num 14:10But the whole congregation threatened to stone Joshua and Caleb. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to all the Israelites at the Tent of Meeting.
Num 14:11And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?
Num 14:12I will strike them with a plague and destroy them—and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”
Num 14:13But Moses said to the LORD, “The Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought this people from among them.
Num 14:14And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have already heard that You, O LORD, are in the midst of this people, that You, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
Num 14:15If You kill this people as one man, the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,
Num 14:16‘Because the LORD was unable to bring this people into the land He swore to give them, He has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
Num 14:17So now I pray, may the power of my Lord be magnified, just as You have declared:
Num 14:18‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’
Num 14:19Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your loving devotion, just as You have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”
Num 14:20“I have pardoned them as you requested,” the LORD replied.
Num 14:21“Yet as surely as I live and as surely as the whole earth is filled with the glory of the LORD,
Num 14:22not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—
Num 14:23not one will ever see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will see it.
Num 14:24But because My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he has entered, and his descendants will inherit it.
Num 14:25Now since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”
Num 14:26Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
Num 14:27“How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.
Num 14:28So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.
Num 14:29Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.
Num 14:30Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
Num 14:31But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.
Num 14:32As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.
Num 14:33Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.
Num 14:34In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.
Num 14:35I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this entire wicked congregation, which has conspired against Me. They will meet their end in the wilderness, and there they will die.”
Num 14:36So the men Moses had sent to spy out the land, who had returned and made the whole congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report about the land—
Num 14:37those men who had brought out the bad report about the land—were struck down by a plague before the LORD.
Num 14:38Of those men who had gone to spy out the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive.
Num 14:39And when Moses relayed these words to all the Israelites, the people mourned bitterly.
Num 14:40Early the next morning they got up and went up toward the ridge of the hill country. “We have indeed sinned,” they said, “but we will go to the place the LORD has promised.”
Num 14:41But Moses said, “Why are you transgressing the commandment of the LORD? This will not succeed!
Num 14:42Do not go up, lest you be struck down by your enemies, because the LORD is not among you.
Num 14:43For there the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the LORD, He will not be with you.”
Num 14:44But they dared to go up to the ridge of the hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the covenant of the LORD moved from the camp.
Num 14:45Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that part of the hill country came down, attacked them, and routed them all the way to Hormah.

01 — Also here

Who else the chapter reaches

Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

02 — Read alongside

Where this is echoed

Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 414 passages were voted onto 44 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

18 Exodus 34:6–7Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,
18 Psalms 145:8The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion.
18 Exodus 20:5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
8 2 Samuel 22:20He brought me out into the open; He rescued me because He delighted in me.
9 Deuteronomy 7:18But do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt:
12 Exodus 32:10Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
18 Jonah 4:2So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.
21 Habakkuk 2:14For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
21 Psalms 72:19And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen.
24 Joshua 14:6–14Then the sons of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh-barnea about you and me.
8 Isaiah 62:4No longer will you be called Forsaken, nor your land named Desolate; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be His bride.
24 Numbers 14:6–9Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes
34 Ezekiel 4:6When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year.
8 Numbers 13:27And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!
11 Psalms 78:32In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.
18 Nahum 1:2–3The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

Onward

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