🔢WEB · Numbers 14:31
What does Numbers 14:31 mean?
"But your little ones, that you said should be captured or killed, them I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have rejected."
— Numbers 14:31 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Tell them, ‘As I live, says Yahweh, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.
Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me,
surely you shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
But your little ones, that you said should be captured or killed, them I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have rejected.
But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness.
After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’
Explanation
Numbers 14:31 records God's response to the Israelites after they refused to enter the Promised Land following the report of the twelve spies. In plain language, God is saying: "You claimed your children would be captured or killed if you attempted to take this land, and you used that fear as an excuse to rebel against me. But I will prove you wrong—I will personally bring those very children into the land, and they will experience and know the land you rejected because you didn't trust me."
The context is crucial here. In Numbers 13-14, Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan, and ten of them returned with a fearful report, exaggerating the strength of the land's inhabitants and claiming Israel could never conquer it. Only Joshua and Caleb urged the people to trust God's promise and move forward. The people, terrified, not only refused to enter the land but accused God of bringing them out of Egypt just to let them and their children die by the sword, and they even suggested returning to Egypt (Numbers 14:2-4). Their complaint specifically included the fear that their little ones would become plunder or be killed in battle (Numbers 14:3). This verse is God's direct rebuttal to that specific fear-based accusation.
Theologically, this verse highlights several important truths. First, it shows the seriousness of unbelief and its consequences—the adult gener
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