Numbers 14:33

Num_14:33-34

Each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities.

God often punishes sin proportionably

God oftentimes punisheth in proportion, so that the judgment is answerable to the sin. Of what kind the sin is, of the same kind is the punishment (Gen_42:21). God sent upon Sodom a punishment like to the nature of their sin; they burned in unclean and unnatural lust one toward another, and the Lord sent fire from heaven to burn them up.

1. God hath many ways to punish sin, yet it pleaseth Him to send His punishments according to our sins, thereby to strike us with inward remorse and to work a deeper impression in the conscience. For when He punisheth after this manner rather than after any other, the judgment itself doth more effectually force the sufferer to acknowledge Gods justice in plaguing of Him in that sort.

2. This maketh men not only to justify God, whose, judgments are always just, but maketh them also to judge themselves, and thereby they oftentimes prevent the more heavy judgments of God.

3. God hath given a law, and by the law He requireth a proportionable punishment for sin (Lev_24:19). This course will the Lord take (who is the supreme Magistrate) so often as it pleaseth Him, albeit He do not tie Himself to that law.

Uses:

1. This serveth to warrant us that we may lawfully expect judgment from God in proportion upon men for their sins. For the which hath been, may be; and that which the Lord hath done, He will certainly do it again, so that we may promise and persuade ourselves that they shall in the end be paid home to the full, with due proportion of punishment according to their sins.

2. Whensoever we remain under any judgment of Gods hand, let us labour for spiritual wisdom, that we may discern what the sin is which is the cause thereof. For by the manner of the judgment we may oftentimes find out the manner of our sin. This way we shall make the punishment profitable unto us, if we take it and lay it unto the sin, as it were a salve upon the sore. It will work in us a care to judge ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord (1Co_11:31-32).

3. As God dealeth with men in regard to their sins, so He dealeth oftentimes with His children in good things and for good things. He will reward according to our deeds, blessing with the same blessing, and mercy with the same mercy (2Ti_1:18). (W. Attersoll.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Num 14:33. Shall wander in the wilderness — Hebrew, יהיו רעים, Jehju rognim, shall feed, shall seek their food from place to place, after the manner of the Arabian shepherds, that were forced to remove their tents from one place to another, that they might find pasture for their flocks. Forty years — Reckoning from the time of their first coming out of Egypt into the wilderness, where they had already wandered a year and a half. And bear your whoredoms — The punishment of your whoredoms, that is, of your idolatries, of your apostacy from, and perfidiousness against the Lord, who was your husband, having espoused you to himself by covenant. Idolatry and apostacy from God’s worship are continually represented under the idea of whoredom in the Scripture. And it appears from Amo 5:25-26, that the Israelites were every now and then falling off to this sin during the whole period of these forty years in the wilderness.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Your infidelity and disobedience against God.

The word signifieth to be shepherds, or to wander like shepherds to and fro.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(33) And your children shall wander.—Better, shall be shepherds, or, shall feed their flocks.

Forty years.—The forty years were reckoned from the exodus, not from the return of the spies to Kadesh. (See Num_14:34 and Note.)

And bear your whoredoms.—The children were doomed to bear the penalty of their fathers’ apostasy. (Comp. Exo_34:16.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33. your children shall be shepherds] as R.V. marg. They were to continue to rove about with their flocks, instead of settling down to agricultural life in Canaan. The rendering ‘wanderers’ is due to the Vulg. vagi.

and shall bear your whoredoms] Your children, though they will not die in the wilderness, must suffer for your unfaithfulness to God. The metaphor of whoredom, the action of a woman who deserts her husband for another, is frequently applied to Israel. By defiant unbelief (as here), or by the worship of foreign gods (as Hos_2:7; Hos_9:1), or by foreign alliances (as Eze_16:26; Eze_23:1-35), she proved, time after time, unfaithful to Jehovah.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

After the number of days in which ye searched the land,

even forty days,.... For so long they were searching it, Num 13:25,

each day for a year; reckoning each day for a year, forty days for forty years, as in Eze 4:6,

shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years: which number is given, being a round one, otherwise it was but thirty eight years and a half ere they were all cut off, and their children entered the land:

and ye shall know my breach of promise; God never makes any breach of promise; his covenant he will not break, nor alter what is gone out of his lips; men break their promises, and transgress the covenant they have made with him, but he never breaks his, Psa 89:34; this should rather be rendered only, "ye shall know my breach"; experience a breach made upon them by him, upon their persons and families by consuming them in the wilderness: the Targum of Jonathan is,"and ye shall know what ye have murmured against me;''this same word is used in the plural in Job 33:10, and is by the Targum rendered "murmurings" or "complaints"; and so the sense is, ye shall know by sad experience the evil of complaining and murmuring against me. The Vulgate Latin version is,"ye shall know my vengeance;''and so the Septuagint,"ye shall know the fury of my anger''which give the sense, though not a literal version of the words.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Your whoredoms - Their several rebellions had been so many acts of faithless departure from the Lord who had taken them unto Himself. And as the children of the unchaste have generally to bear in their earthly careers much of the disgrace and the misery which forms the natural penalty of their parents’ transgression; so here the children of the Israelites, although suffered to hope for an eventual entry into Canaan, were yet to endure, through many long years’ wandering, the appropriate punishment of their fathers’ willfulness.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Years. Within five days from the departure out of Egypt, (Menochius) and above 38 from this time. Hebrew, "they shall be shepherds," without any fixed dwelling, like the shepherds of that country. --- Consumed. They had complained that Chanaan consumed and devoured its inhabitants. (Calmet) --- Their children underwent a temporal, but salutary, punishment for their sin. (St. Augustine, ep. 75.) (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Wander, like sheep, feeding in the deserts; or shall be shepherds, i.e. shall live like the shepherds of Arabia, in tents, and removing from place to place, having no certain dwelling.

Forty years, i.e. so long as to make up the time of your dwelling in the wilderness forty years, as appears from Num 33:8; Deu 1:3 2:14. Compare Amo 5:25. It is manifest that one whole year and part of another were past before this sin or judgment.

Your whoredoms, i.e. the punishment of your whoredoms, to wit, of your apostacy from, and perfidiousness against, your Lord, who was your Husband, and had married you to himself. See Jer 3:14. Whence idolatry is called whoredom.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

33. Bear your whoredoms — Disobedience to God is in the Scriptures often expressed as infidelity to the marriage vow. The highest ideal of spiritual life is that of the bride’s heart-surrender in marriage. The Bible is full of this aspect of consecration, and of warning against the loathsomeness of divided affections. See Lev_17:7; Jdg_2:17, notes. It is one thing for the innocent to bear the natural consequences of others’ guilt, and quite a different thing to bear their punishment. See Exo_20:5; Num_14:18, notes.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Your children shall wander. Literally, "shall pasture." Septuagint, esontai nemomenoi . It was not altogether a threat, for it implied that the Lord would be their Shepherd and would provide for their wants in their wanderings. Forty years. This period was made up by counting in the year and a half since the exodus. It was one of those many cases in which the word of God was fulfilled in the meaning and substance of it, but not in the letter. The delay which had already occurred was itself practically due to the same spirit of mutiny which had grown to a head at Kadesh; it was therefore strictly equitable to count it as part of the punishment inflicted. (see on Deu_2:14) And bear your whoredoms. "Whoredom" had been already used (Exo_34:16) as a synonym for idolatry in its aspect of spiritual unfaithfulness, and there is no reason to depart from that well-marked meaning here. That the Jews were guilty of idolatry in the wilderness is distinctly asserted; (cf. Act_7:42, Act_7:43) and these idolatrous practices, carried on no doubt in secret, must have been a sore trial to the generation which grew up amidst them. (cf. Jos_24:14, Jos_24:23)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Forty years - So long as to make up the time of your dwelling in the wilderness forty years; one whole year and part of another were past before this sin or judgment. Your whoredoms - The punishment of your whoredoms, of your apostacy from, and perfidiousness against your Lord, who was your husband, and had married you to himself.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

ארבעים שנה [AND YOUR CHILDREN SHALL WANDER IN THE DESERT] FORTY YEARS — None of them was to die younger than 60 years old (Bava Batra 121b). For this reason a period of forty years was decreed for their wanderings in order that those who were at that time 20 years old (and only those from twenty years old and upwards came under this decree; cf. v. 29) should reach the age of sixty (the average age of man; cf. Moed Katan 28a and Tosefta Yoma 4:10. s. v. ומיתה). The first year that they were in the wilderness was included in the forty although it preceded the sending forth of the spies (which took place in the second year), because from the moment they made the Golden Calf this decree entered the mind of God, but He waited for them (postponed their punishment) until their measure of sin should be full. This is the meaning of what is stated, (Exodus 32:34) “And in the day when I shall visit — viz., at the incident of the spies — I shall visit their sin (that of the Golden Calf) upon them”. And, here, indeed, it states, (v. 34) “ye shall bear your iniquities” (in the plural) suggesting two sins; that of the Calf and that of the murmuring. — In the calculation it (Scripture) regards in the years of their lives a part of the year (of the sixtieth year) as the whole of it, and as soon as they entered their sixtieth year those who were now twenty years old died (Tanchuma 4:4:13).

ונשאו את זנותיכם AND SHALL BEAR YOUR WHOREDOMS — Understand this as the Targum does: and they shall bear your guilt (cf. Targum on ונשא את עונה, Numbers 30:16, and Rashi on that verse).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.