The People Refuse to Enter Canaan
Numbers 14All the congregation raised their voice in a loud cry, and the people wept that night. All the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness! Why does YHWH bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into Egypt?” They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes. They spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If YHWH delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us: a land which flows with milk and honey. Only y’all must not rebel against YHWH, and y’all should not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection has been removed from over them, and YHWH is with us. Y’all must not fear them.”
But all the congregation threatened to stone them with stones.
YHWH’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the children of Israel.
Judgment for Rebellion
YHWH said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, then I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
Moses said to YHWH, “Then the Egyptians will hear it! For you brought up this people in your might from among them. They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you YHWH are among this people; for you YHWH are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying, ‘Because YHWH was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’ Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying, ‘YHWH is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your lovingkindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
YHWH said, “I have pardoned according to your word; but in very deed—as I live, and as all the earth will be filled with YHWH’s glory— because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; none of them will see the land that I swore to their fathers, nor will any of those who despised me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and has followed me fully, I will bring him into the land which he entered. His descendants will possess it. Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley, tomorrow y’all are to turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” YHWH spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long must I bear with this evil congregation that complains against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, which they complain against me. You tell them, ‘As I live, says YHWH, I will do to y’all surely what y’all have spoken in my ears. Y’all’s corpses will fall in this wilderness—all of y’all who were counted as twenty years old or older and who has complained against me. Y’all will not enter the land that I swore with uplifted hand to make y’all’s dwelling place, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But I will bring in y’all’s little ones that y’all said would be captured or killed. They will know the land that y’all have rejected. But as for y’all, y’all’s corpses will fall in this wilderness. Y’all’s children will be wanderers in the wilderness for forty years, and they will bear the penalty of y’all’s prostitution until y’all’s corpses are consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days y’all spied in the land, forty days, for every day, y’all will bear y’all’s iniquities for a year, forty years. Then y’all will know my opposition.’ I, YHWH, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will be consumed, and there they will die.”
The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land, even those men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before YHWH. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who went to spy out the land.
Israel Defeated
Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. They rose up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Look, we are here, and will go up to the place which YHWH has promised; for we have sinned.”
Moses said, “Why are y’all disobeying the commandment of YHWH? This will not succeed. Y’all must not go up, for YHWH is not among y’all, and y’all will be struck down by y’all’s enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before y’all, and y’all will fall by the sword because y’all turned back from following YHWH. Therefore YHWH will not be with y’all.”
But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain. Nevertheless, the ark of YHWH’s covenant and Moses didn’t depart out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah.