Numbers 14:20 - Meaning and Application

Here we have God’s answer to Moses’ prayer, and it carries both mercy and judgment. It is first given privately to Moses (Numbers 14:20-25), then later told publicly to the people (Numbers 14:26-35). The repeated parts of the message show that these decisions are fixed and will not change. Let us look at the details.

First, the sentence is softened (Numbers 14:20). God says, “I have pardoned,” meaning he will not destroy them all at once or cut them off from the promise. This shows the power of prayer, and how much God honors it. God had already planned to grant pardon, but he lets Moses have the honor of obtaining it through prayer, so that it may be said, “according to your word.” In this way Moses shows the kind of holy boldness that has power with God and prevails.

This also encourages us to pray for others. God gives clear support to intercession, prayer on behalf of other people, so that we may have a public spirit in prayer. A whole nation is rescued from ruin because one righteous man prays with earnestness. We also see how ready God is to forgive and how willing he is to listen. Moses says, “Pardon” (Numbers 14:19), and God answers, “I have pardoned” (Numbers 14:20). David found God just this quick to show mercy (Psalm 32:5). God does not deal with us according to our sins (Psalm 103:10).

Second, God resolves to glorify his own name (Numbers 14:21). He says, and even swears, that all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. Moses had cared deeply about God’s honor in his prayer. God answers, in effect, “Leave that to me. I will make sure my glory is secured and advanced through this action.” The whole world will see both that God hates sin, even among his own people, and that he is gracious, merciful, and slow to anger.

So when our Savior prayed, “Father, glorify your name,” he was answered at once: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” (John 12:28). Those who truly seek God’s glory may be sure of receiving what they ask for. Since God turns this prayer for his glory into a promise, we may turn it into praise, joining with the angels who cry, “The whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3).

Third, the sin of this people is described more fully (Numbers 14:22, 27). It is not made worse than it really was, but it is shown to be deeply sinful. They were an evil congregation, each person bad, and together very bad indeed. They tempted God. They tested his power, wondering if he could help them in trouble, his goodness, wondering if he would help, and his faithfulness, wondering if his promise would stand. They also tested his justice, asking whether he would punish their rebellion. In effect, they dared him, as the idols are challenged in Isaiah 41:23, to do good or evil.

They also murmured against him, and this is stressed especially in Numbers 14:27. They not only questioned what he would do, they complained about everything he did or had done. They kept fretting and finding fault. It does not seem that they murmured against God’s laws or commands, though those were a heavy burden to their flesh. Rather, they complained about the way he led them and the provision he gave them.

This shows how much easier it is to perform outward religion than to live in steady dependence on God and submission to his providence in daily life. They sinned after they had seen his miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness (Numbers 14:2). They would not believe even their own eyes, though those eyes had seen proof that God was truly among them. They had repeated these provocations ten times, meaning very often. Jewish writers count this as the tenth time the people, as a body, had provoked God. The list begins at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:11), then at Marah (Exodus 15:23-24), in the wilderness of Sin (Exodus 16:2), at Rephidim (Exodus 17:1-2), with the golden calf (Exodus 32), then at Taberah, then at Kibroth-Hattaavah (Numbers 11), and so on until this point.

God keeps account of how often we repeat our sins, and sooner or later he will bring them before us in order. They had not listened to his voice, even though he had warned them again and again about their sin. This is a serious thing. Repeated warnings ignored make guilt greater, not smaller.

Fourth, the sentence against them is then given. They would not see the promised land (Numbers 14:23), and they would not enter it either (Numbers 14:30). God swore in his anger that they would not enter his rest (Psalm 95:11). Unbelief in God’s promise means losing the benefit of that promise. Those who despise the pleasant land will be shut out of it. The promise would still be fulfilled to their children, but not to them.

They must also turn back at once into the wilderness (Numbers 14:25). Their next move would be a retreat. They were to turn around, and instead of going forward into Canaan, which they had nearly reached, they must withdraw toward the Red Sea again. “Tomorrow turn you” means, “Very soon you will be sent back into that great wilderness you are so tired of.” And this retreat was also for their safety, because the Amalekites were waiting in the valley and ready to attack them if they marched forward. They had once feared the Amalekites without reason (Numbers 13:29), and now God would rightly make them afraid of them. The fear of the wicked will come upon him.

All those who were now grown men would die in the wilderness, though not all at once, but little by little. They had wished they might die there, and God granted their sinful wish. He made their sin their ruin, trapped them by the words of their own mouths, and caused their own words to fall back on them. He took them at their word and decided that their bodies would fall in the wilderness (Numbers 14:28-29, 32, 35).

See how contemptuously they are spoken of now that their sin has made them low. The men of strength and courage were only carcasses once the Spirit of the Lord had left them. They were as good as dead. Their fathers had valued Canaan so highly that they wanted even their dead bodies carried there for burial, as a sign of trust in God’s promise. But these people despised that good land and refused to believe the promise, so they would not have the honor of being buried in it. Their graves would be in the wilderness.

In keeping with this sentence, they would wander back and forth in the wilderness like lost travelers for forty years, long enough to make the time from Egypt to Canaan exactly forty years (Numbers 14:33-34). They were kept wandering for that long for two reasons. First, it matched the forty days the spies had spent searching the land. They were willing to wait forty days for human reports because they would not trust God’s word, so they must now wait forty years for God’s promise to be fulfilled. Second, this wandering was meant to bring them to repentance, so that they might find mercy with God in the world to come, whatever became of them in this life.

Now they had time to think carefully and to examine their ways. The hard life in the wilderness would humble them, test them, and show what was in their hearts (Deuteronomy 8:2). For a long time they had to carry their own guilt, feeling the weight of God’s anger through the punishment they received. They were made to groan under the burden of their sin, and that burden was more than they could bear.

This also taught them how dangerous it is for God’s covenant people to break faith with him. They would learn the meaning of God’s withdrawal, both why it happened and what it would lead to. It came because of their sin, for God never leaves people until they have first turned from him. And the result would be their ruin, for they were truly undone when they were put outside the covenant.

Another purpose was to raise up a new generation, and that could not happen all at once. The children would grow up under clear signs of God’s displeasure against their fathers. They would bear their parents’ sin, that is, the punishment for it, especially the idolatry connected with the golden calf, which God now remembered against them. Their long wandering would also make Canaan sweeter to them when they finally entered it. It seems that Moses wrote Psalm 90 on this occasion, and it fits Israel’s condition very well. In that psalm they are taught to pray that, since this sentence could not be taken back, God would use it for their good and teach them to apply their hearts to wisdom.

There was mercy mixed in with this severe sentence. First, there was mercy for Caleb and Joshua. Though they would wander with the rest in the wilderness, they, and only they of all who were now over twenty, would outlive the years of exile and enter Canaan. Only Caleb is named here (Numbers 14:24), and he is given special honor. His character is praised, because he had “another spirit,” unlike the other spies. He had better and wiser thoughts, and he followed the Lord fully, staying close to his duty and carrying it through, even when others deserted him and threatened him.

He is also given a promise of reward. God says, “I will bring him into the land where he went.” This should be our great concern, to follow the Lord fully. In a life of obeying God’s will and serving his honor, we should follow him completely, without splitting our loyalty, honestly, without pretending, gladly, without arguing, and steadily, without turning aside. That is what it means to follow him fully. Those who want to do that must have another spirit, different from the spirit of the world and different from their own natural spirit. They must have Caleb’s spirit. Those who follow God fully in a time of widespread unbelief will be honored by God with special care in a time of common trouble. And the heavenly Canaan, the lasting inheritance of believers, will belong to all who follow the Lord fully.

When Caleb is mentioned again (Numbers 14:30), Joshua stands with him. He shares the same favor and the same honor, because he stood with Caleb in the same service.

Second, there was mercy for the children of these rebels. They would still have a preserved family line, and Canaan would still be secured for that family. God says, “Your little ones, whom you said would become prey, I will bring in” (Numbers 14:31). In their unbelief, the people had wrongly claimed that God meant to destroy their children (Numbers 14:3). But God would show that he can make a clear difference between the guilty and the innocent, cutting off the parents without harming the children. In this way, the promise made to Abraham, though it seemed for a time to fail, would never fail in the end. Though God disciplined their sins with a rod, he would not take away his faithful love entirely.