Commentaria in Numeros
Add that there were precisely 40 years, at least begun, if you take the year not as the sacred but as the profane year, which began from Tisri, that is, from September. For there were 38 complete years, with seven or eight months. Now these months are broken: the first two preceded the Tisri of the first year; for this murmuring took place in July, namely on the fortieth day from the sending of the spies: but these were sent in June; whence the first two months up to Tisri belong to the first year, and constitute it in this numbering: thence from one Tisri to another there passed continuously 38 whole years. Again, after these 38 years there passed from the last Tisri to March, in which they entered Chanaan, six months, which belong to the new year, namely the fortieth: thus, therefore, there were 40 years, but broken both at the beginning and at the end, according to the reckoning of the common or profane year.
R. Salomon thinks that these 40 years were fixed with regard to the age of those who were to die in the desert: that none of them died before the sixtieth year of age, so that he who had completed his sixtieth year sooner died sooner: and that therefore 40 years are here fixed, so that those who had gone out of Egypt in the twentieth year of their age should die in the fortieth year from the exodus out of Egypt (and that was their sixtieth year), namely a little before the other younger ones entered Chanaan. But these are, as is his custom, fictions which rest on no foundation: whence Abulensis refutes them at length.
“The children shall bear the penalty of your fornication,” that is, of your prevarication, and declining from God and the law of God. For as a woman who turns aside from her husband to an adulterer is said to fornicate, so the soul also fornicates if it deviates from God and the law of God, to whom it is bound by a right more than marital, especially if this be done through idolatry. For an idol is, as it were, another husband, and so, as it were, an adulterer of the soul. A like phrase is in the next chapter, verse 39.
Verse 34. “Iniquities,” that is, the penalty of iniquities.
“A year shall be counted for a day,” shall be reckoned; as if to say: As the spies tarried 40 days in Chanaan, viewing it, so proportionately you Hebrews shall remain 40 years in the desert, because they made you murmur: even though they did not murmur, or sin, on all those 40 days. For this proportion in the number 40 is not that of the days of the fault to the years of the penalty, but is a certain fitness of the number that gave the occasion of the fault to the number that inflicts the punishment; so Abulensis.
Morally the Gloss from Origen: “I fear,” he says, “to discuss this mystery; for I see that in it the reckoning of sins and punishments is comprehended: for if to every sinner a year is assigned for punishment for the sin of a single day, I fear lest for us, who sin daily, not even the ages of ages may perhaps suffice to pay the penalties.”
to be completed. For he holds that none of them died in the desert before the sixtieth year.
Verse 37. “Were dead, and struck in the sight of the Lord.” All the spies, except Josue and Caleb, were punished with sudden death before the Lord, that is, by a sentence passed by God upon them and a plague sent by him upon them, that all might see the judgment and vengeance of God upon them.
Some assert that a plague was sent upon them. R. Salomon says that their tongues, with which they had detracted the promised land, were swollen and dripped venom, and they themselves died suddenly. Whether it happened so, or whether they were struck by some other plague, God knows. This history answers to the threat, and for that reason is inserted here by anticipation, before Moses had reported the threats of God to the people.
Verse 39. “And Moses spoke all these words to all the children of Israel.” “Words,” namely the sentence of death passed by God on all the murmurers.
“And the people mourned exceedingly,” greatly, in a wonderful manner, both on account of this sentence of death passed on themselves, and on account of the miserable death of the spies, which they had seen with their eyes.
Verse 40. “And behold, rising up early in the morning, they went up to the top of the mountain” of Idumaea, so as to penetrate at once into Chanaan. Behold the foolish: while they flee vices, they run into the contrary: the Hebrews, who before were averse from Chanaan, now rush headlong into it without counsel, nod or help of God, and so, disobedient on both sides, are punished on both and cut down.
A fitting apologue is told by Cleobulus in Plutarch, in the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men: The moon, he says, asked her mother to weave her a fitting tunic. To whom the mother said: How can I do that, when I see you now full, now half, now horned? So for a foolish and vicious man there is no measure: for the fool is changed like the moon: now he is most spirited, now most timid; now he obeys, now he rebels.
Valerius Maximus said truly, book I: “The valour of the soldiers is placed in the counsel of the leader.” And Archidamus, seeing his son fighting too rashly against the Athenians, said: “Either thy strength must be increased, or thy boldness diminished.” And Phocion, about to fight against the Macedonians, when many young men running up urged him to place his camp on a hill, said: “O Hercules, how many generals, but how very few soldiers!” noting the youthful rashness which tried to go before the general, whereas it is the part of a soldier not to give counsel but to carry out orders; Plutarch is witness in the Apophthegms.
Among the Macedonians, to take arms without the order of the leader, to go into ranks, or to attack the enemy, was severely guarded against by military law, says Alexander ab Alexandro, book III, chap. xx. King Philip punished Archidamus with death because, when he had ordered him to continue under arms, he had laid them down; Aelian is witness, book XIV. Under Lysander, prefect of the fleet of the Lacedaemonians, Dercyllides, accused of not having kept the ranks, was ordered, for ignominy, to stand bearing his shield before him. This, says Xenophon, is the penalty for not keeping the order.
“We are ready to go up to the place of which the Lord hath spoken: for we have sinned.” As if they said: We were disobedient to the Lord; now we repent of what we did, we desire to obey God, and not to think of returning into Egypt, but forthwith to pass through the mountains into the promised land. But again they sin by disobedience: for the Lord had commanded that they should return by the way of the Red Sea.
Verse 44. “But they, being blinded (blinded by disobedience and by the desire of penetrating into Chanaan, unwilling to yield to the judgment of Moses), went up to the top of the mountain,” in which the Chanaanites and Amalecites dwelt, who attacked the Hebrews and struck them down. For it was easy for them, placed on a height, to cast down and drive off the Hebrews climbing up with difficulty. Hence prudent generals seize and preoccupy high places, and likewise (positions) with the wind, the sun and the dust at their back. This C. Marius did, the famous general of the Romans, who vanquished the Cimbri: whence when Popidius Silo, the leader of the enemy, sent word to Marius: “If thou art a great general, O Marius, come and decide it in battle,” he answered: “If thou art a great general, compel me, unwilling as I am, to fight it out.” So Plutarch in the Life of Marius.
Verse 45. “And pursued them as far as Horma.” It is a prolepsis: for Horma, that is, anathema, is here the name of the land which was afterwards called Horma from the slaughter wrought there by the Hebrews, Numbers xxi, 3; Horma, therefore, signifies here the boundary and limits of the land afterwards smitten by the Hebrews. So Abulensis. Others think that this Horma is another place, which, like that of chap. xxi, verse 3, was called Horma from this defeat and anathema of the Hebrews.
Verse 43. For “because,” Maurer renders “for therefore,” namely that ye might fall slain by the sword of the enemy, the effect being put for the cause, as in Genesis xvii, 5; xix, 8.
Better, “and rashly went up.” The Hebrew word means “he swelled”; hence in the hiphil it means he acted arrogantly, confidently, rashly. It is taken adverbially. The Vulgate seems to have taken it for another word.