Numbers 14:36 - Meaning and Application

Here is the sudden death of the ten evil spies. While the sentence was still being announced to the people, before it was fully made known, they died from a plague before the Lord (Numbers 14:36, 14:37). God showed his special anger against those who sinned and led Israel into sin.

They sinned in bringing back a false report about the promised land. Those deeply provoke God who misrepresent religion, disgrace it, and plant suspicion in people’s minds against it. If anyone makes God’s service seem low, gloomy, burdensome, impossible, useless, or unworthy, that person brings a bad report on the good land and twists the ways of the Lord. In effect, such a person calls God a liar.

They also made Israel sin. They deliberately stirred up the whole community to grumble against God. Leaders in sin should expect a special mark of God’s anger, because he will surely call them to account for the ruin of souls they helped cause.

God also showed what he could have done to the whole congregation. By cutting off one person from each tribe in this way, he gave a warning of the sentence now passed on them all. He who could strike down one tribe’s representative could have destroyed the whole nation at once, but instead he would do it little by little. The striking deaths of notorious sinners are a warning of the final ruin of the ungodly (2 Peter 2:5, 2:6). In this way God’s wrath is shown, so sinners may hear and fear.

Caleb and Joshua were specially preserved. They were still alive (Numbers 14:38). It is likely that all twelve spies were standing together, since all Israel was watching them. So it would have been especially striking to the whole camp that the ten evil spies fell dead from the plague, a deadly and spreading disease, while these two remained alive and well. God confirmed their testimony and silenced those who had talked of stoning them. He also gave them assurance that he would keep them safe in the wilderness, when thousands would fall on their right hand and left (Psalm 91:7). Death never misses the person it is meant to take, and it never takes by mistake anyone meant for life, even in the middle of those who must die.

Then Moses announced the sentence to all the people (Numbers 14:36). He told them the decree that had gone out against them and could not be changed: they must all die in the wilderness, and the land of Canaan would be kept for the next generation. This was surely a heavy disappointment, both to Moses, who longed to enter Canaan, and to all the people. Yet Moses accepted it. They, however, wept and mourned greatly.

Moses found comfort in the fact that God would be honored by this sentence. But the people were crushed by their own guilt, since they had brought this on themselves. They had wept for nothing before (Numbers 14:1), and now they had reason to weep. So murmurers are justly made mourners. If they had grieved over their sin when they were faithfully rebuked for it (Numbers 14:9), the sentence might have been avoided. But now their sorrow came too late, and it did them no good. They found no way to repent, though they searched for it with tears (Hebrews 12:17). There is such mourning in hell, but tears there will not put out the fire or cool the tongue.

Some of the Israelites then made a foolish and useless effort to enter Canaan anyway. They were eager to go forward toward the land (Numbers 14:40). They got up early, gathered their forces, came together as one body, and asked Moses to lead them against the enemy. Now they no longer talked about choosing a captain to take them back to Egypt. They admitted their fault, saying, “We have sinned,” and claimed they were ready to change, “We are here, and will go up.” Now they wanted the land they had once despised, and they trusted the promise they had once doubted. When God judges, he will be proved right. In time, he will show sinners the evil of their wicked deeds and harsh words, and make them take back their own words.

God was honored by this change of mind, but they gained nothing from it, because it came too late. The decree had already gone out, and their destruction was settled. They had not sought the Lord while he could be found, and now he would not be found. Oh, if people were only as eager for heaven while time still lasts as they are after it is too late, and as careful to gather oil while the bridegroom delays as they are when he finally comes, how much better it would be for them.

Moses completely refused their plan and forbade the march they were preparing: do not go up (Numbers 14:41-43). He warned them that it would be sin, because it broke the Lord’s command. God had already told them, when they set out, to turn back toward the Red Sea. What had been duty in its proper time can become sin when it is done at the wrong time. The command here was given as punishment, but even then they were still bound to obey, because the Lord is our Judge as well as our Lawgiver.

Moses also warned them of the danger. “It will not succeed.” It is foolish to expect success in something we do against God’s will. The Canaanites were before them ready to attack, and the Lord was not among them to defend them. So they had to look to themselves and expect to fall before their enemies. Those who step out of the path of duty place themselves outside God’s protection and go at their own risk. It is dangerous to go where we cannot expect God to go with us.

Moses even foretold their defeat: they would fall by the sword of the Amalekites and Canaanites, who should have fallen by their sword. Since they had turned away from the Lord and from following his command and promise, the Lord would not be with them. God will certainly leave those who leave him, and those who are left without him are exposed to every misery.

Still, they went ahead anyway. Never was a people so stubborn and so determined to walk against God in everything. God told them to go, and they would not. He forbade them, and they did. This is how the human heart, in its natural state, shows hostility toward God. They tried to go up to the hill country anyway (Numbers 14:44). They fought against God’s sentence of justice and pressed on in defiance of it. They also ignored the signs of God’s presence, because they went forward even though they left Moses and the ark of the covenant behind them. They had doubted God’s strength, and now they were presuming on their own strength without him.

The expedition turned out exactly as Moses said (Numbers 14:45).

The enemy had taken position on the top of the hill to guard the pass against the invaders. When their scouts reported that Israel was coming, they came out against them, defeated them, and it is likely that many Israelites were killed. In this, the sentence was beginning to be carried out, that their bodies would fall in the wilderness.

This shows that no matter how it seems at first, any matter that begins in sin cannot end well. If we want peace with our friends and success against our enemies, the way is to make God our friend and keep ourselves in his love. The Jews, like these earlier Israelites, rejected Christ’s righteousness, meaning the right standing God gives through Christ, and tried to establish their own. It turned out just like this.