🔢WEB · Numbers 14:19
What does Numbers 14:19 mean?
"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.”"
— Numbers 14:19 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
‘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.”
Yahweh said, “I have pardoned according to your word:
but in very deed, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with Yahweh’s glory;
because all those men who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice;
Explanation
Numbers 14:19 records Moses interceding for the people of Israel after they rebelled against God, refusing to enter the Promised Land because they feared the inhabitants they had spied out. In plain language, Moses is pleading with God to forgive Israel's sin, basing his request not on the people's merit—since they have none—but on the sheer magnitude of God's own steadfast love (his "loving kindness," a rich Hebrew word, chesed, referring to covenant faithfulness and mercy). Moses also appeals to God's track record: just as God has repeatedly forgiven this same people throughout their journey from Egypt to this point, he asks God to do so again now.
The context is critical. The Israelites, having just left Egypt, sent twelve spies into Canaan. Ten returned with a fearful report, causing the whole community to despair, weep, and even talk of stoning Moses and Aaron and appointing a new leader to return to Egypt. God, provoked by this repeated unbelief despite having seen his miracles firsthand, threatens to disinherit the nation and start over with Moses. Moses responds not by defending the people's character, but by appealing to God's reputation among the surrounding nations and to God's own revealed nature—recalling God's self-description in Exodus 34:6-7 as slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Numbers 14:19 is the climax of that appeal, a direct petition for pardon grounded entirely in who God is, not in what Israel deserves.
Theologically, this verse highlights several important truths. First
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