Numbers 14:33, commentary and pictures

The children were to live through forty years of wandering in the wilderness, bearing and suffering the consequences of their fathers' unfaithfulness, rebellion and murmuring, reckoned a year for each of the forty days of searching the land, until the numbered murmuring generation from twenty years old and upward wasted away and died there, none entering except Caleb and Joshua while the little ones said to be a prey were preserved and brought in to know the despised land.
The sentence came because the congregation joined the unfaithful spies in their lying report that the land eats its inhabitants and is full of giants, rejected the truthful testimony of Joshua and Caleb that it is exceeding good, wept and murmured against Moses and Aaron, wished to have died in Egypt or the wilderness, charged God with bringing them to fall by the sword, and plotted to make a captain and return to Egypt.
Moses' intercession turned away smiting with pestilence and disinheriting, yet God in mercy spared them from destruction while swearing they should never enter, so the forty years were not His intended route, for heaven's army stood ready to take an obedient people in, but disobedience made the prolonged wandering the merited punishment, and to know the breach of promise is to fully realize that their own rebellion working at cross-purposes with Him obliged Him to change His purpose and withdraw His pledge to go with their armies into Canaan.
After the sentence they turned from rebellious refusal to presumptuous going up after the time had passed, and though warned that God their General and the ark would not go with them they went without His presence and were slaughtered in ambush, while the later leveling of Jericho's walls without human power proved their fathers might have possessed the city forty years before if they had trusted their divine Leader enshrouded in the pillar of fire.
The unbelief, complaining and wandering that followed the twelve spies is re-enacted in God's professed people now in cowardly drawing back and unwillingness to heed faithful counsel, and for the same insubordination they may have to remain in this world many more years through their own wrong course, adding sin to sin when they charge God with delays caused by themselves.

Words and Reckoning

Your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years means the children of the rebellious Israelites would live through forty years of wandering in the wilderness while the parent generation died there. To bear your whoredoms means to bear and suffer the consequences of their parents' unfaithfulness, iniquity, rebellion and murmuring throughout that time until their carcasses were wasted in the wilderness. The punishment followed the rebellion at the return of the spies, and the adults who left Egypt would not enter the promised land. The children whom their parents feared would become a prey would instead be preserved to enter the land and know it.

Whoredoms is the unfaithfulness and rebellion of the fathers against God. It includes their iniquity, idolatry, and rebellious murmurings against Him. Bearing it for forty years was the sentence for taking the wrong side against faithful testimony and for charging God with bringing them to fall and making their wives and children a prey.

The forty years correspond to the forty days spent searching the land, reckoned a year for each day, a day for a year. The number of days the land was searched measured the years in the wilderness. Those forty years are reckoned from leaving Egypt. Those to fall and die in the wilderness are all that were numbered from twenty years old and upward who murmured, the murmuring generation wasting away there and never entering the promised land.

None of that numbered generation enters except Caleb and Joshua alone, while the little ones said to be a prey are brought in to know the despised land. Only two of the adults who left Egypt entered the promised land. The children enter and know the land their parents despised and feared to possess by trusting the Lord.

Rebellion Behind Sentence

The sentence fell because the congregation accepted the evil, unfaithful, lying report of the spies that the land eats up its inhabitants and is filled with giants and men of great stature. That false report discouraged the people and led them to reject the faithful, truthful witness of Joshua and Caleb that the land is exceeding good and to be possessed by trusting the Lord. Their long sojourn was therefore not an unnecessary delay in itself, for by this rebellion they had forfeited the chance to enter Canaan then, and their children would live through the wilderness years before the older generation perished.

Joining the unfaithful spies in revolt, the congregation wept and murmured against Moses and Aaron, wished to have died in Egypt or in the wilderness, and reproached God. They charged Him with bringing them out to fall by the sword and to make their wives and children a prey, plotted to make a captain and return to Egypt, and took the wrong side under satanic influence. All who were numbered from twenty years old and upward would have their carcasses fall in the wilderness, save Caleb and Joshua alone, while their little ones, which they said should be a prey, would be preserved and brought in to know the land which their fathers despised.

Moses' intercession turned away smiting with pestilence and disinheriting to make of him a greater nation. God in mercy spared Israel from destruction when He had purposed to destroy them, yet swore that the murmurers would fall and never enter the promised land.

At the exodus He meant to give Israel Canaan including Jericho and to magnify His name among the nations. But their wicked murmurings, jealousy, unbelief, backsliding, apostasy, and refusal to trust, obey, and do what He appointed insulted Him and provoked His wrath. The forty years of wandering were not His intended route to Canaan but the consequence of that refusal, and their failure to trust and obey their divine Leader who had pledged to lead them safely if they followed His guidance led to death in the wilderness.

Justice and Mercy

The forty years in the wilderness were not God's intended route to Canaan but the consequence of unbelief, backsliding, apostasy, continual backslidings and grievous sins, and the rebellion that followed receiving the evil report of the faithless spies. The long sojourn was not in itself a necessary delay, for had Israel been obedient heaven's army under the generalship of Christ stood ready long before to take them into the land, as proved when the walls of Jericho were afterward leveled without human power and the city given to Israel. The people had forfeited the chance to enter Canaan then, so their children would live through the wilderness years before the older generation perished, and when they were faithful and obedient no good thing promised was withheld, but unfaithfulness brought the prolonged wandering as merited punishment that cost them all.

God in mercy turned Israel backward to be enclosed in the wilderness for forty years, to see neither city nor town, until those who were continually murmuring should die. All Israel was then suffering under God's frown with hearts filled with bitter murmurings, in no fit state to appreciate anything He would do for them, and unwilling to sanctify Him in their hearts and give Him glory. A manifestation of His power against their enemies in that condition would only have filled them with pride and self-importance, so the punishment was merited and unbelief and rebellion cost them all. The perishing of the ten unfaithful spies before their eyes signified the destruction of all in their ranks above twenty years of age.

To know the breach of promise is to fully realize that idolatry and rebellious murmurings obliged God to change His purpose to give them Canaan. Their own rebellion working at cross-purposes with Him caused His withdrawal of the pledge to go with their armies into Canaan, after they refused to go up when He promised to go with them. The decree that Israel would not enter Canaan for forty years was the consequence of disobedience, and the people's grief when they learned its consequences was sorrow over the judgment, not repentance for sin, so it could not reverse the sentence.

Aftermath and Evidence

When commanded to go up and take the land they refused in rebellion and murmuring, and after the sentence that they would die in the wilderness and wander forty years they turned to the opposite presumption and determined to go up after the favorable time had passed. Though Moses warned them distinctly that God would not be with them, that their General would not go with their armies and the ark would not go, they would not heed and went out to battle contrary to the Lord's direction without His presence. They were overcome by their enemies and slaughtered by the Amalekites lying in ambush, and God in mercy turned their course to keep the Amalekites and Canaanites from following up the advantage. Their refusal when He promised to go with them and their presuming to go after He withdrew His pledge showed rebellion working at cross-purposes with Him, and going up without the Lord's presence ended in defeat.

The later capture of Jericho proved what obedience could have done, for when its walls were leveled without human power and the city was given to Israel it showed their fathers might have possessed the city forty years before if they had trusted God as their children did. God had meant at the exodus from bondage to give Israel Canaan including Jericho and to magnify His name among the nations, but their wicked murmurings, jealousy and unbelief insulted Him and provoked His wrath, so He made them wander weary years until all that unbelieving generation died. The forty years of travel were not necessary but were caused by receiving the evil report of the faithless spies and rebelling, whereas had Israel been obedient heaven's army under Christ's generalship stood ready to take them in long before.

Christ Himself, enshrouded in the pillar of fire, was Israel's leader during that wandering and gave them instruction through Moses. The wandering belongs with their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the spoiling of Egypt by plagues because Pharaoh refused to let them go, the death of the firstborn, the way through the Red Sea with waters as a wall, the song of praise for deliverance, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his army when the waters returned. This stands in contrast to their failure to trust and obey their divine Leader who had pledged to lead them safely if they followed His guidance, and because they did not follow, the people who left Egypt did not all reach the promised land and their children had to wander forty years.

The journey was on foot over rocks and arid desert amid heat, dust, thirst, roughness of the way and fatigue, drawing complaints and sighs of fatigue from many who trod that weary way. The hardship was so great that people today with every convenience would murmur even more than the Israelites if obliged to make the same journey on foot. While the sentenced generation was gradually lost, the broken ranks and missing people remained as signs of earlier perverseness and of the resisted sentence. Caleb and Joshua shared the wandering with the people but as men of faith survived and entered the promised land, and Caleb later received the stronghold of the giants and drove out the Canaanites in God's strength.

At first the people were unwilling to believe and submit to God's word that they would certainly all die in the wilderness and not enter the promised land, and tried to call it an imposture and say Moses had deceived them. They resisted accepting the judgment because doing so would require believing God's word and recognizing Moses and Aaron as righteous, holding instead that they were a good people wronged by Moses and that Korah and his company who flattered them were good men. At length they were compelled to believe it was indeed the Lord's word, were terrified at their fate, acknowledged that Moses and Aaron were right, and confessed they had sinned against the Lord by rebelling against their authority. They confessed also that Korah and those who perished with him were sinners against the Lord who had justly suffered His wrath.

Korah, Dathan and Abiram turned the sentence into accusation, denying that God Himself had declared that Israel would die and not enter, and claiming Moses said it on his own and invented it to keep them from Canaan and never bring them there. They called Egypt a land flowing with milk and honey, charged Moses with bringing them out of a good land to kill them in the wilderness to enrich himself with their possessions, and charged him with failing to give them inheritance of fields and vineyards. They claimed he had shown interest in Israel from the first for a selfish object and had designed to keep them wandering until they perished so he could come into possession of their property, questioning his motives and authority and utterly refusing any longer to acknowledge the authority of Moses and Aaron. The children of the condemned first generation, who wandered forty years bearing their parents' unfaithfulness and rebellion until their bodies perished there, themselves displayed the same spirit of unbelief, putting at risk their reception of God's promise.

Warning for Today

The unbelief, complaining, and wandering that followed the report of the twelve spies applies to God's professed people now. That history is re-enacted today in cowardly complaining and drawing back when risks must be met, and in unwillingness to heed faithful reports and true counsel as in the day of Caleb and Joshua. Ancient Israel was repeatedly tested and found wanting, and few received faithful warnings, and the same darkness and unbelief increase as the second advent nears. Truth becomes less palatable to the carnally minded, whose hearts are slow to believe and tardy to repent, while servants who bear the burden of the cause with strict self-denial and privation to help the people are little appreciated. Long the Lord bears with His people, forgiving their wanderings and waiting for room in their hearts, while false ideas, jealousy, and distrust crowd Him out. Few enlightened by divine wisdom dare come boldly forward as Caleb did and stand firmly for God and the right, and those chosen to conduct His work who will not turn from integrity to gratify the selfish and unconsecrated become targets for hatred and malicious falsehood through Satan's wary working in these last days.

False reports and unbelief can still lead a whole congregation into rebellion, as the spies' false report discouraged the people and led them to reject the faithful testimony of Joshua and Caleb. The forty years of the children wandering in the wilderness bearing the consequences of their parents' unfaithfulness warns that those who turn from instruction and follow their own course will reap the results of their choices.

As Israel's unbelief, backsliding, and refusal to do what God appointed brought forty years of wandering and death in the desert when God had wanted to lead them directly into Canaan, so unbelief can delay the fulfillment of God's purpose in the Advent movement. There refusal to proclaim the appointed message meant others were raised up to do the work. Christ's coming was delayed in mercy so people could hear the warning and find shelter in Him.

For the same insubordination that kept Israel many years in the wilderness, God's people may have to remain in this world many more years. The prolonged wandering is the consequence of their own wrong course of action. They add sin to sin when they charge God with delays caused by themselves, and must not blame Him for the consequences of their own wrong choices.