🔢WEB · Numbers 14:16
What does Numbers 14:16 mean?
"‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’"
— Numbers 14:16 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people in your might from among them.
They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you Yahweh are among this people; for you Yahweh are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night.
Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying,
‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’
Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying,
‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’
Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Explanation
Numbers 14:16 is not God speaking, nor even Moses stating his own belief. It is Moses quoting what he predicts the surrounding nations would say about God if the Lord wiped out Israel in the wilderness. The verse imagines the taunt: "God couldn't finish what he started — he promised these people the land of Canaan, but he wasn't strong enough to get them there, so he killed them off in the desert instead." Moses puts this accusation into words as part of his appeal to God not to destroy Israel.
The context is critical to understanding the verse rightly. In Numbers 13-14, the twelve spies return from scouting Canaan, and ten of them give a fearful report, causing the people to rebel against Moses, doubt God's promise, and even talk of stoning Moses and returning to Egypt. God, provoked by this unbelief, threatens to disinherit the nation and start over with Moses alone (14:12). Moses then intercedes on the people's behalf (14:13-19), and verse 16 is the heart of his argument: if God kills this wh
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