Numbers 14:26-38

Numbers 14:26 (P). The Condemnation of the People to Forty Years-' Wanderings in the Wilderness. This passage comes from P, being parallel to, but divergent from, 11- 25, for both Joshua, and Caleb (not the latter alone, as in Numbers 14:24) are exempted from the sentence of exclusion (cf. Numbers 14:6). The subsequent history assumes that exemption was extended to Eleazar also (see Numbers 32:28; Joshua 14:1; Joshua 24:33).

Numbers 14:31. know: read (with LXX), inherit.

Numbers 14:33. wanderers: better (with mg.), shepherds (living as nomads and not as occupiers of land). forty years: a conventional figure equivalent to a generation (cf. Judges 3:11; Judges 5:31). whoredoms: i.e. acts of mistrust (not of idolatry, as usual, Ezekiel 23:11, Hosea 2:5).

Numbers 14:37. the plague. Paul, who alludes to the occurrence in 1 Corinthians 10:10, substitutes the destroyer, thus attributing the infliction of the plague to an angelic agent (as is done in the case of the pestilence sent to punish David's offence in 1 Chronicles 21:12; 1 Chronicles 21:15).

Numbers 14:39. An Abortive Invasion of Canaan. This comes from JE.

Numbers 14:40. the mountain: cf. Numbers 13:17.

Numbers 14:44. the ark: this was wont to accompany the army as a palladium: cf. Numbers 10:35 f.

Numbers 14:45. Hormah: afterwards reckoned in the territory of Judah or of Simeon (Joshua 15:30; Joshua 19:4).