Numbers 14:1

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.²All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! ³Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" ⁴So they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Numbers 11:1-4, Deuteronomy 1:45

Reciprocal: Genesis 45:2 - wept aloud Exodus 13:17 - the people repent Exodus 14:11 - Because Exodus 15:24 - General Exodus 23:2 - follow Exodus 33:4 - they mourned Numbers 11:10 - weep throughout Numbers 16:3 - gathered Numbers 20:3 - God Numbers 21:5 - spake Numbers 32:9 - General Deuteronomy 1:26 - General Deuteronomy 9:7 - from the day Deuteronomy 9:23 - ye rebelled Deuteronomy 20:8 - lest his brethren's 1 Samuel 30:4 - lifted up Job 42:10 - when Psalms 78:32 - they sinned Psalms 106:25 - murmured Proverbs 15:19 - way of the slothful Isaiah 7:2 - And his heart Ezekiel 20:36 - General Acts 7:36 - and in the wilderness

Cross-References

Genesis 10:22
The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.

Genesis 11:2
And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Isaiah 11:11
On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

Isaiah 21:2
A dire vision is declared to me: "The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I will put an end to all her groaning."

Isaiah 22:6
Elam takes up a quiver, with chariots and horsemen, and Kir uncovers the shield.

Isaiah 37:12
Did the gods of the nations my fathers destroyed rescue them-the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?

Jeremiah 25:25
all the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media;

Ezekiel 32:24
Elam is there with all her multitudes around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword-those who went down uncircumcised to the earth below, who once spread their terror in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit.

Daniel 1:2
And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them into the treasury of his god.

Zechariah 5:11
"To build a house for it in the land of Shinar," he told me. "And when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its pedestal."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried,.... This is not to be understood of every individual in the congregation of Israel, but of the princes, heads, and elders of the people that were with Moses and Aaron when the report of the spies was made; though indeed the report might quickly spread throughout the body of the people, and occasion a general outcry, which was very loud and clamorous, and attended with all the signs of distress imaginable, in shrieks and tears and lamentations:

and the people wept that night: perhaps throughout the night; could get no sleep nor rest all the night, but spent it in weeping and crying, at the thought of their condition and circumstances, and the disappointments they had met with, as they conceived, of entering into and possessing the land.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER XIV

The whole congregation weep at the account brought by the

spies, 1.

They murmur, 2, 3;

and propose to make themselves a captain, and go back to

Egypt, 4.

Moses and Aaron are greatly affected, 5.

Joshua and Caleb endeavour to appease and encourage the

people, 6-9.

The congregation are about to stone them, 10.

The glory of the Lord appears, and he is about to smite the

rebels with the pestilence, 11, 12.

Moses makes a long and pathetic intercession in their behalf,

13-19.

The Lord hears and forbears to punish, 20;

but purposes that not one of that generation shall enter into

the promised land save Joshua and Caleb, 21-24.

Moses is commanded to turn and get into the wilderness by way

of the Red Sea, 25.

The Lord repeats his purpose that none of that generation shall

enter into the promised land-that their carcasses shall fall in

the wilderness, and that their children alone, with Joshua and

Caleb, shall possess the land of the Canaanites, c., 26-32.

As many days as they have searched the land shall they wander

years in the desert, until they shall be utterly consumed, 33-35.

All the spies save Joshua and Caleb die by a plague, 36-38.

Moses declares God's purpose to the people, at which they are

greatly affected, 39.

They acknowledge their sin, and purpose to go up at once and

possess the land, 40.

Moses cautions them against resisting the purpose of God, 41-43.

They, notwithstanding, presume to go, but Moses and the ark

abide in the camp, 44.

The Amalekites and Canaanites come down from the mountains, and

defeat them, 45.

NOTES ON CHAP. XIV

Verse Numbers 14:1. Cried and - wept that night. — In almost every case this people gave deplorable evidence of the degraded state of their minds. With scarcely any mental firmness, and with almost no religion, they could bear no reverses, and were ever at their wit's end. They were headstrong, presumptuous, pusillanimous, indecisive, and fickle. And because they were such, therefore the power and wisdom of God appeared the more conspicuously in the whole of their history.