Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
Parallel translations
- WEB Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people that errs in their heart. They have not known my ways.”
- BSB For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”
- NKJV For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’
- NASB “For forty years I was disgusted with that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways.
- NLT For forty years I was angry with them, and I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’
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
For forty years God was grieved with that wayward, straying generation. Persistent rebellion grieves God and reveals hearts gone astray.
Overview
God speaks of His long-suffering grief over a generation that continually erred and refused to know His ways. Their heart-level straying, not mere outward failure, was the issue. This sobering picture underscores the seriousness of unbelief and the patience of God, magnifying the grace now offered in Christ (Hebrews 3:10; Numbers 14:34).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Heb 3:17But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
- Prov 1:22–29How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
- Heb 3:9–10When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
- Isa 63:17O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.
- Acts 13:18And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness.
- Acts 7:36He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
- Deut 2:14–16And the space in which we came from Kadeshbarnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, was thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the LORD sware unto them.
- Jer 9:6Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.
- Num 32:13And the LORD’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed.
- Prov 1:7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
- Eph 4:30And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
- Num 14:33–34And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
- Rom 1:28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
- Gen 6:6And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
- Deut 1:3And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them;
- John 3:19–21And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 95:10 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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