Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the LORD against Israel.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Behold, you have risen up in your fathers’ place, an increase of sinful men, to increase the fierce anger of Yahweh toward Israel.
- KJV And, behold, ye are risen up in your fathers’ stead, an increase of sinful men, to augment yet the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel.
- NKJV And look! You have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel.
- NASB Now behold, you have risen up in your fathers’ place, born of sinful men, to add still more to the burning anger of the Lord against Israel.
- NLT But here you are, a brood of sinners, doing exactly the same thing! You are making the Lord even angrier with Israel.
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
Moses warns Gad and Reuben that by hesitating they are following in their fathers' sinful footsteps, stoking God's anger anew. Repeating past unbelief invites the same wrath.
Overview
Moses calls them a brood of sinful men rising up to add to the LORD's anger against Israel. The charge is severe because the stakes are the same as before: the whole nation's faith and future. The warning shows how one group's failure can endanger the entire community, a principle that informs the New Testament's calls to mutual responsibility within the body of believers.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Acts 7:51–52You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
- Luke 11:48So you are witnesses consenting to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.
- Matt 23:31–33So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
- Neh 9:24–26So their descendants went in and possessed the land; You subdued before them the Canaanites dwelling in the land. You delivered into their hands the kings and peoples of the land, to do with them as they wished.
- Neh 13:18Did not your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this disaster on us and on this city? And now you are rekindling His wrath against Israel by profaning the Sabbath!”
- Isa 65:6–7Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will pay it back into their laps,
- Isa 1:4Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.
- Isa 57:4Whom are you mocking? At whom do you snarl and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of deceit,
- Deut 1:34–35When the LORD heard your words, He grew angry and swore an oath, saying,
- Ezek 20:21But the children rebelled against Me. They did not walk in My statutes or carefully observe My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they profaned My Sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the wilderness.
- Gen 8:21When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.
- Gen 5:3When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son in his own likeness, after his own image; and he named him Seth.
- Ps 78:57They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.
- Job 14:4Who can bring out clean from unclean? No one!
- Ezra 9:13–14After all that has come upon us because of our evil deeds and our great guilt (though You, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us such a remnant as this),
- Ezra 10:10Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, adding to the guilt of Israel.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 32:14 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.