🔢WEB · Numbers 14:22
What does Numbers 14:22 mean?
"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;"
— Numbers 14:22 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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;
surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it.
But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went. His offspring shall possess it.
Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn, and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
Explanation
Numbers 14:22 comes from a passage where God is pronouncing judgment on the generation of Israelites who left Egypt in the Exodus. In plain language, the verse says that these people had personally witnessed God's glory and miraculous signs, both in Egypt during the plagues and afterward in the wilderness, yet they had tested or defied God repeatedly—ten times, as stated—and consistently refused to obey his voice. This is God's own summary of their pattern of unfaithfulness, given as the basis for his decision that this generation would not enter the Promised Land.
The context is critical to understanding the weight of this statement. The book of Numbers, traditionally attributed to Moses, records Israel's journey from Sinai toward Canaan. Just before this verse, twelve spies had been sent to scout the land of Canaan. Ten of them returned with a fearful, discouraging report, claiming the inhabitants were too strong to overcome, despite God's repeated promises and demonstrated power. The people responded by weeping, rebelling against Moses and Aaron, and even proposing to choose a new leader to take them back to Egypt. This was the final straw in a long series of complaints and rebellions—at the Red Sea, in the wilderness over food and water, at Sinai with the golden calf, and now here at the border of the Promised Land. God's declaration in verse 22 names this pattern explicitly: despite overwhelming evidence of his power and faithfulness, they persisted in testing him and disobeying.
Theologically, this verse highlights the se
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