Numbers 14:29

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,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) From twenty years old and upward.—Rashi thinks that these words were employed to show that the Levites who were numbered from a month old and upwards were not included in the general sentence of destruction, and hence that it is no just cause of astonishment that some of them, as, e.g., Eleazar, should have entered the land of Canaan.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:20-35 The Lord granted the prayer of Moses so far as not at once to destroy the congregation. But disbelief of the promise forbids the benefit. Those who despise the pleasant land shall be shut out of it. The promise of God should be fulfilled to their children. They wished to die in the wilderness; God made their sin their ruin, took them at their word, and their carcases fell in the wilderness. They were made to groan under the burden of their own sin, which was too heavy for them to bear. Ye shall know my breach of promise, both the causes of it, that it is procured by your sin, for God never leaves any till they first leave him; and the consequences of it, that will produce your ruin. But your little ones, now under twenty years old, which ye, in your unbelief, said should be a prey, them will I bring in. God will let them know that he can put a difference between the guilty and the innocent, and cut them off without touching their children. Thus God would not utterly take away his loving kindness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Render: And now the Amalekites and the Canaanites are dwelling (or abiding) in the valley: wherefore turn you, etc. (that so ye be not smitten before them). The Amalekites were the nomad bands that roved through the open pastures of the plain Numbers 14:45 : the Canaanites, a term here taken in its wider sense, were the Amorites of the neighboring cities (compare Numbers 14:45 with Deuteronomy 1:44), who probably lived in league with the Amalekites.

Tomorrow - Not necessarily the next day, but an idiom for "hereafter," "henceforward" (compare the marginal reading in Exodus 13:14; Joshua 4:6).

By the way of the Red sea - That is, apparently, by the eastern or Elanitic gulf.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley)—that is, on the other side of the Idumean mountain, at whose base they were then encamped. Those nomad tribes had at that time occupied it with a determination to oppose the further progress of the Hebrew people. Hence God gave the command that they seek a safe and timely retreat into the desert, to escape the pursuit of those resolute enemies, to whom, with their wives and children, they would fall a helpless prey because they had forfeited the presence and protection of God. This verse forms an important part of the narrative and should be freed from the parenthetical form which our English translators have given it.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness,.... They had wished they had died in it, Numbers 14:2, and the Lord here declares they should, which is signified by the falling of their carcasses in it, or their bodies, which when dead fall to the ground, having no strength to support themselves:

and all that were numbered of you: but a few months before this time, when their number was 603,550, Numbers 1:46,

according to your number from twenty years old and upward; which is observed, as Jarchi thinks, to except the Levites, for they were not numbered with the other tribes; and when they were numbered by themselves, their number was taken from a month old and upwards; wherefore it need not be wondered at, if we find that there were of them who did not fall in the wilderness, but entered into the land of Canaan, as it is certain Eleazar the priest, the son of Aaron, did, Numbers 34:17,

which have murmured against me; which shows, that not the spies only, who caused the people to murmur, but the people themselves who murmured, and had been numbered, from twenty years old and upward, are the evil congregation the Lord thus threatened with death.

Geneva Study Bible

Your carcasses 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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29. all that were numbered] in the census (ch. 1). The Levites, however, were not included in that census (Numbers 1:47), and the priestly writer probably assumed that the sentence of death in the wilderness did not apply to them. Aaron’s son Eleazar succeeded his father as high priest on the borders of Canaan, and he must certainly have been over 20 years of age at this time, since he acted in a responsible position as priest before the departure from Sinai (see Numbers 3:3 f., 32, Numbers 4:16).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - All that were numbered of you... from twenty years old (cf. Numbers 1:18, 19, 47). All that had been enrolled as the soldiers of the Lord, to fight his battles and their own, but had refused, and had incurred the guilt of mutiny. Numbers 14:29

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Jehovah swore that it should happen to the murmurers as they had spoken. Their corpses should fall in the desert, even all who had been numbered, from twenty years old and upwards: they should not see the land into which Jehovah had lifted up His hand (see at Exodus 6:8) to lead them, with the sole exception of Caleb and Joshua. But their children, who, as they said, would be a prey (Numbers 14:3), them Jehovah would bring, and they should learn to know the land which the others had despised.