Numbers 14:25-27 New English Translation
25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.)[a] Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”
26 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: 27 “How long must I bear[b] with this evil congregation[c] that murmurs against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites that they murmured against me.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Numbers 14:25 sn The judgment on Israel is that they turn back to the desert and not attack the tribes in the land. So a parenthetical clause is inserted to state who was living there. They would surely block the entrance to the land from the south—unless God removed them. And he is not going to do that for Israel.
- Numbers 14:27 tn The figure is aposiopesis, or sudden silence. The main verb is deleted from the line, “how long…this evil community.” The intensity of the emotion is the reason for the ellipsis.
- Numbers 14:27 sn It is worth mentioning in passing that this is one of the Rabbinic proof texts for having at least ten men to form a congregation and have prayer. If God called ten men (the bad spies) a “congregation,” then a congregation must have ten men. But here the word “community/congregation” refers in this context to the people of Israel as a whole, not just to the ten spies.
New English Translation (NET)
NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.