Your fathers did so when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.
Parallel translations
- KJV Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadeshbarnea to see the land.
- BSB This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to inspect the land.
- NKJV Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.
- NASB This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.
- NLT Your ancestors did the same thing when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to explore the land.
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 recalls how the previous generation's scouts at Kadesh Barnea undermined Israel's courage. He invokes that history as a warning against repeating it.
Overview
Moses points back to the failure at Kadesh Barnea, when twelve spies were sent to survey the land but most returned spreading fear. By recalling this, he frames the present request as a potential second rebellion. The reminder underscores a biblical pattern: God's people must learn from past unbelief rather than repeat it, trusting the One who keeps His promises.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Num 13:2–26“Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince among them.”
- Num 14:2All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!
- Deut 1:19–25We traveled from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Yahweh our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.
- Josh 14:6–7Then the children of Judah came near to Joshua in Gilgal. Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know the thing that Yahweh spoke to Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning you in Kadesh Barnea.
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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 32:8 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.