Study Desk

But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD'S people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!"

The people spent all that day and all night and all the next day and caught and gathered the quail (the one who gathered least gathered ten homers) and they spread them out for themselves around the camp [to cure them by drying].

So that place was named Kibroth-hattaavah (the graves of greediness), because there they buried the people who had been greedy [for more than the manna that God provided them].

From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth, and they remained at Hazeroth.

Now Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman);

But the LORD said to Moses, "If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up outside the camp for seven days, and afterward she may return."

So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was brought in again [and declared ceremonially clean from her leprosy].

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once and take possession of it; for we will certainly conquer it."

But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people [of Canaan], for they are too strong for us."

"Why is the LORD bringing us to this land [of Canaan], to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?"

"Only do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them."

But Moses said to the LORD, "Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought up these people from among them,

'The LORD is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving wickedness and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting (avenging) the wickedness and guilt of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generations [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers].'

"Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley; tomorrow turn and set out for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea."

'Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, not one of you shall enter the land in which I swore [an oath] to settle you.

'But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness.

'Your sons shall be wanderers and shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness (spiritual infidelity), until your corpses are consumed in the wilderness.

'According to the number of days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], forty days, for each day, you shall bear and suffer a year for your sins and guilt, for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement because of your sin].

As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation murmur and complain against him by bringing back a bad report concerning the land,

"Do not go up, or you will be struck down before your enemies, for the LORD is not among you.