Numbers 14:39

39 Moshe told these words to all the children of Yisra'el: and the people mourned greatly.

Numbers 14:39 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:39

And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel,
&c.] That all that had murmured, who were of twenty years old and upwards, should die in the wilderness, and never see nor enter into the land of Canaan, on the borders of which they now were: and the people mourned greatly;
because of their unhappy case, that they should be cut off by death in the wilderness, and be deprived of the enjoyment of the good land; their sorrow seems to have been not a godly sorrow, or true repentance for sin committed, but a worldly sorrow that works death; it was not on account of the evil of sin, the pardon of which they did not seem to seek after, but on account of the evil that was likely to come to them by it.

Numbers 14:39 In-Context

37 even those men who did bring up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

38 But Yehoshua the son of Nun, and Kalev the son of Yefunneh, remained alive of those men who went to spy out the land.

39 Moshe told these words to all the children of Yisra'el: and the people mourned greatly.

40 They rose up early in the morning, and got them up to the top of the mountain, saying, Behold, we are here, and will go up to the place which the LORD has promised: for we have sinned.

41 Moshe said, Why now do you disobey the mitzvah of the LORD, seeing it shall not prosper?