Numbers 14:34
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. 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.
After the twelve spies searched the promised land for forty days and the people believed the faithless report instead of trusting God to bring them in, He sentenced them to bear their iniquities in the wilderness forty years, a year for each day. To know His breach of promise is to learn by experience that His pledged help to bring them in was conditional on obedience and trust, and their rebellion released Him from the promise and forfeited their claim to His favor and protection. The sentence establishes the prophetic rule that a day represents a year for reckoning stated prophetic periods. By that rule Daniel's seventy weeks are four hundred and ninety years with sixty-nine weeks to the Messiah as four hundred and eighty-three years, and the twenty-three hundred days are twenty-three hundred years ending in 1844. As unbelief kept Israel from soon entering Canaan so that only Caleb and Joshua of the adults who left Egypt entered, unbelief and refusal to do the appointed work has delayed Christ's coming and may keep His people in this world many more years.
Setting and Terms
The verse belongs to the mission of the twelve spies sent to survey the promised land, one ruler chosen from each tribe to examine the land itself, its people, and its produce. The sentence was pronounced after the people chose to believe the discouraging, lying report of the unfaithful spies rather than the testimony of Joshua and Caleb that God would bring them in. In doing so they murmured against Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb and turned against faithful leaders and the divine guidance given through them.
The search had arisen from the people's own proposal, which Moses laid before the Lord and obtained consent to grant, and its disastrous result was to teach that only the way God marks out is safe. Had they waited for the Lord to say go forward and followed the divine Leader, they would have seen the majesty and glory of God as truly as they saw it forty years afterward. Instead they were turned backward to be enclosed in the wilderness for forty years, to see neither city nor town until all continually murmuring above twenty years of age should die. That turning back was merciful to shield them from enemies, for they were in no fit state to appreciate what God would do for them, and a display of His power against their enemies would only have filled them with pride and self-importance.
Christ Himself, enshrouded in the pillar of fire, was Israel's leader and General who commanded them to go up and gave them instruction through Moses. That wilderness experience is to be studied together with deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the spoiling of Egypt by the plagues sent because Pharaoh refused to let Israel go, the death of the firstborn, and the making of a path through the Red Sea where the waters stood as a wall.
The phrase about knowing God's breach of promise means the people would learn by experience what it was for God to change His purpose toward them and withhold the promised land from that generation because of unbelief. His promises to bring them in were conditional on obedience and trust, sure when they were faithful, but their disobedience meant the adult generation would not enter. Their idolatry, rebellious murmuring, and working at cross-purposes with Him released Him from their violated promise and forfeited their claim to His favor, protection, and pledged help. Thus the forty days spent searching the land corresponded to forty years of bearing iniquity, until the rebellious parents who had rebelled died, with the years reckoned from the departure from Egypt.
Forty-Year Wilderness Judgment
Each of the forty days spent searching the land was counted for a year, so for forty years the people would bear their iniquities and whoredoms in the wilderness as merited punishment for unbelief, rebellion and bitter murmuring. That forty years is a predicted period fulfilled in history in accordance with the prophecy, with each day representing a year. The years were reckoned from the departure from Egypt, until all numbered from twenty years old and upward who murmured would die with their carcasses falling and wasted in the wilderness. The ten unfaithful spies were destroyed before the people as a sign of that coming destruction of all in their ranks above twenty. Only Caleb, who followed God fully, and Joshua would enter, while the little ones said to be a prey would be brought in to know the land that was despised.
After the judgment was declared the favorable time had passed, yet the people presumptuously tried to enter anyway. Though distinctly warned that the Lord and his General would not be with them and that the ark would not go, they went up to battle contrary to direction and were overcome and slaughtered by their enemies. The sentence was God's word requiring belief and submission, not an imposture or scheme of Moses to keep himself as prince, enrich himself with their possessions, and lead them blindly between Canaan, the Red Sea and Egypt. Dathan and Abiram denied God had spoken it and charged Moses with inventing it after bringing them out of a land of milk and honey to kill them, defended Korah's company as good men, and refused the authority of Moses and Aaron. But once convinced the Lord had spoken the people acknowledged Moses and Aaron were right and confessed they had sinned by rebelling, seeing their rebellion in its true light and that Korah and those who perished with him were sinners who had justly suffered wrath.
The long delay need not have happened and claims that it was unnecessary wrongly blame God and Moses, for Israel's own cowardly rebellion brought it about. God had purposed at the exodus to give Canaan including Jericho to magnify his name, and heaven's army under the generalship of Christ stood ready to take them in long before. The later leveling of Jericho's walls without human power showed the fathers might have possessed it forty years before had they trusted God as their children did. Sorrow over the consequences did not amount to repentance or undo the judgment. The broken ranks and diminished numbers remained visible signs of it, yet the people failed to learn, and the same spirit of unbelief appearing in their children put their reception of the promise in danger.
Day for Year Principle
The verse establishes the symbolic rule for prophetic time that a day represents a year. In symbolic prophecy each prophetic day stands for a literal year. The forty days spent searching the land corresponding to forty years of bearing the consequences of sin provides the precedent for reading days in symbolic prophecy as years. This principle supports studying the stated periods of prophecy and determining when they begin and end.
By that rule Daniel's seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety days, represent four hundred and ninety years. The sixty-nine weeks to the Messiah represent four hundred and eighty-three years reckoned from the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem. The last week of the seventy is seven years.
By the same rule the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14 represent 2,300 literal years. The period begins in 457 B.C. and ends in 1844. Recognizing that it ended in autumn rather than spring corrects the timing without changing the year or the event marked by its end.
Israel's forty years in the wilderness is a predicted period fulfilled in history in accordance with the prophecy. The forty years of bearing iniquity in the wilderness corresponded to the forty days spent searching the land, with each day representing a year.
Warning for Today
God's dealing with Israel after the report of the twelve spies has an application to his people today. The same cowardly complaining and drawing back from action when risks are to be encountered, and the same unwillingness to heed faithful reports and true counsel as in the days of Caleb and Joshua, are re-enacted now. Ancient Israel was repeatedly tested and found wanting and few received the faithful warnings given them, and darkness and unbelief do not decrease as the time of the second advent of Christ nears. Truth is less palatable to the carnally minded, hearts are slow to believe and tardy to repent, and long has the Lord borne with his people, forgiving their wanderings and waiting for them to give him room in their hearts. False ideas, jealousy, and distrust crowd him out, and few dare like Caleb to come boldly forward and stand firmly for God and the right.
The chapter belongs to the account of rebellion after the spies returned from searching Canaan, when the people believed the discouraging report rather than the testimony of Joshua and Caleb that God would bring them into the land, and turned against their faithful leaders. It warns that unbelief can spread, lead a whole community into rebellion, and bring serious consequences. Israel's disobedience and rebellion kept the people from entering Canaan soon, so that they journeyed in the wilderness for forty years. Only two of the adults who left Egypt entered the promised land, for God had wanted to lead the people directly into Canaan, but that generation perished in the desert through unbelief, backsliding and apostasy while others entered.
Their failure to trust God and do the work he appointed is applied to the Advent movement, in that unbelief and refusal to proclaim the appointed message delayed Christ's coming, while others were raised up to proclaim it. The forty years of wandering followed forty days of searching the land, and followed insubordination and disobedience as the consequence of their own wrong course for forty years. Likewise God's people may remain in this world many more years because of insubordination and disobedience. They must not blame God for consequences brought on by their own wrong course, for the delay was not a failure of God, and their experience warns against adding to wrongdoing by blaming him for delays caused by their own choices. The delay gives sinners more opportunity to hear the warning and find shelter in Christ.
Those who turn back from principles of reform repeat Israel's pattern, in which forty years of wandering followed forty days of searching the land. By continuing in their own course they will reap what they have sown.