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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.
Numbers 32:14 · New American Standard Bible
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.
  • BSB 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 7:51–52“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
  • Luke 11:48So you testify and consent to the works of your fathers. For they killed them, and you build their tombs.
  • Matt 23:31–33Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets.
  • Neh 9:24–26“So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they pleased.
  • Neh 13:18Didn’t your fathers do thus, and didn’t our God bring all this evil on us, and on this city? Yet you bring more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”
  • Isa 65:6–7“Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will repay, yes, I will repay into their bosom,
  • Isa 1:4Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.
  • Isa 57:4Whom do you mock? Against whom do you make a wide mouth, and stick out your tongue? Aren’t you children of disobedience, and offspring of falsehood,
  • Deut 1:34–35Yahweh heard the voice of your words, and was angry, and swore, saying,
  • Ezek 20:21“‘“But the children rebelled against me. They didn’t walk in my statutes, neither kept my ordinances to do them, which if a man do, he shall live in them. They profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
  • Gen 8:21Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
  • Gen 5:3Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
  • Ps 78:57but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
  • Job 14:4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
  • Ezra 9:13–14“After all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant,
  • Ezra 10:10Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed, and have married foreign women, to increase the guilt of Israel.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (6)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Numbers videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Numbers 32:14YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on NumbersMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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.