Commentaria in Numeros
Chapter the Fourteenth. Synopsis of the Chapter
At the report of the spies the Hebrews murmur, Caleb and Josue resisting in vain: whereupon God wishes to destroy them; but at the prayer of Moses he spares them, yet with this penalty, that none of the murmurers shall enter the promised land. Finally, verse 40, the Hebrews, going up the mountain against the command of the Lord, are cut down by the Chanaanites.
1. Therefore the whole multitude crying wept that night. 2. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying: 3. Would God we had died in Egypt: and would God we may die in this vast wilderness, and that the Lord may not bring us into this land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led away captives. Is it not better to return into Egypt? 4. And they said one to another: Let us appoint a captain, and let us return into Egypt. 5. And when Moses and Aaron heard this, they fell down flat on the ground before all the multitude of the children of Israel. 6. But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone, who themselves also had viewed the land, rent their garments, 7. and said to all the multitude of the children of Israel: The land which we have gone round is very good: 8. if the Lord be favourable, he will bring us into it, and give us a land flowing with milk and honey. 9. Be not rebellious against the Lord: and fear ye not the people of this land, for we can eat them up like bread. All aid is gone from them: the Lord is with us, fear ye not. 10. And when all the multitude cried out, and would have stoned them, the glory of the Lord appeared over the tabernacle of the covenant to all the children of Israel. 11. And the Lord said to Moses: How long will this people detract me? How long will they not believe me for all the wonders that I have wrought before them? 12. I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and consume them: but thee I will make ruler over a great nation, and a mightier than this is. 13. And Moses said to the Lord: That the Egyptians, from the midst of whom thou hast brought forth this people, 14. and the inhabitants of this land (who have heard that thou, O Lord, art among this people, and art seen face to face, and thy cloud protecteth them, and thou goest before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire,) 15. may hear that thou hast killed so great a multitude as one man, and may say: 16. He could not bring the people into the land for which he had sworn: therefore he slew them in the wilderness. 17. Let the strength of the Lord therefore be magnified, as thou hast sworn, saying: 18. The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness, and leaving no man clear, who visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. 19. Forgive, I beseech thee, the sin of this people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, as thou hast been merciful to them from their going out of Egypt unto this place. 20. And the Lord said: I have forgiven according to thy word. 21. As I live: and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. 22. Yet all the men that have seen my majesty, and the signs that I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now ten times, and have not obeyed my voice, 23. shall not see the land for which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any one of them that hath detracted me behold it. 24. My servant Caleb, who being full of another spirit hath followed me, I will bring into this land, which he hath gone round: and his seed shall possess it. 25. For the Amalecite and the Chanaanite dwell in the valleys. To-morrow remove the camp, and return into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. 26. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 27. How long does this wicked multitude murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. 28. Say therefore to them: As I live, saith the Lord: According as you have spoken in my hearing, so will I do to you. 29. In this wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against me, 30. shall not enter into the land over which I lifted up my hand to make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun. 31. But your children, of whom you said that they should be a prey to the enemies, will I bring in: that they may see the land which hath displeased you. 32. Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness. 33. Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert, 34. according to the number of the forty days wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be counted for a day. And you shall receive according to your iniquities forty years, and you shall know my revenge: 35. for as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude that hath risen up together against me: in the wilderness shall they faint away, and die. 36. So all the men whom Moses sent to view the land, and who at their return had made the whole multitude to murmur against him, detracting the land that it was evil, 37. were dead, and struck in the sight of the Lord. 38. But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone lived of all them that had gone to view the land. 39. And Moses spoke all these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned exceedingly. 40. And behold, rising up early in the morning, they went up to the top of the mountain, and said: We are ready to go up to the place of which the Lord hath spoken: for we have sinned. 41. To whom Moses said: Why do you transgress the word of the Lord, which shall not succeed well with you? 42. Go not up, for the Lord is not with you: lest you fall before your enemies. 43. The Amalecite and the Chanaanite are before you, by whose sword you shall fall, because you would not consent to the Lord, neither will the Lord be with you. 44. But they, being blinded, went up to the top of the mountain. But the ark of the testament of the Lord, and Moses, departed not from the camp. 45. Then the Amalecite came down, and the Chanaanite that dwelt in the mountain: and smiting them, and cutting them off, pursued them as far as Horma.
Verse 2. “They murmured.” In Deuteronomy, chap. i, verse 27, it is added that they said: “The Lord hateth us, and therefore hath brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorrhite, and to destroy us.”
Verse 3. “And would God we may die in this vast wilderness!” So the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint and the Roman Latin read and join these words. The negation “not” and the punctuation which the Plantin Bibles have must therefore be removed. For the Hebrews here wished to die in the desert; whence the Lord also, hearing their prayer, inflicted on them the same punishment which they asked, verse 28, and in fact destroyed them all and buried them in the desert. And he so ordained it because all these Hebrews had been brought up in Egypt, where they served as slaves, and were therefore timid and faint-hearted, not having spirit to wage wars with the Chanaanites: whence he reserved this for their sons, whom he trained in the desert and generously educated. So Abulensis.
Verse 4. “Let us return into Egypt.” Note the stupidity of the murmuring Hebrews. For to return into Egypt was impossible to them, both on account of the want of provisions in the desert (for God would have withdrawn his manna from the rebellious), and because they would again have had to cross the Red Sea, or at least go round it through hostile nations, which would not have suffered the Hebrews to pass through their borders. So Abulensis.