Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,
Parallel translations
- WEB 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,
- BSB Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.
- ESV your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me,
- NKJV The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.
- NASB your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.
- NLT You will all drop dead in this wilderness! Because you complained against me, every one of you who is twenty years old or older and was included in the registration will die.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God decreed that the bodies of all the murmurers aged twenty and up would fall in the wilderness. The rebellious adult generation would not enter the land.
Overview
The LORD sentenced the registered fighting men, those most responsible, to die in the wilderness over the coming years. The judgment fit the crime: those who refused to enter would never enter. God's justice is precise, addressing the accountable while sparing the innocent young.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Num 1:45So were all those that were numbered of the children of Israel, by the house of their fathers, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel;
- Num 26:64But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Heb 3:17But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
- 1 Cor 10:5But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
- Num 14:32–33But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
- Jude 1:5I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 14:29 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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