Numbers 14:34

After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(34) Even forty days, each day for a year.—The numbering which is recorded in chapter 26 took place after the death of Aaron, which happened on the first day of the fifth month of the fortieth year after the exodus (Numbers 33:38). Hence it follows that the year and a half which had elapsed since the exodus must be included in the forty years of shepherd life in the wilderness.

My breach of promise.—The noun which is thus rendered occurs only in one other place, viz., Job 33:10. The cognate verb, however, occurs several times in this book in the sense of refuse, disallow, or hinder. (See Numbers 30:5; Numbers 30:8; Numbers 30:11; Numbers 32:7.) The meaning here appears to be rejection or alienation.

Benson Commentary

Numbers 14:34. Each day for a year — So there should have been forty years to come, but God was pleased mercifully to accept of the time past as a part of that time. Ye shall know my breach of promise — That as you have first broken the covenant between you and me, by breaking the conditions of it, so I will make it void on my part, by denying you the blessings promised in that covenant. Thus you shall see that the breach of promise wherewith you charged me, lies at your door, and was forced from me by your perfidiousness.

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

My breach of promise - In the original, a word, found elsewhere only in Job 30:10, and meaning "my withdrawals" "my turning away." See the margin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

34. ye shall know my breach of promise—that is, in consequence of your violation of the covenant betwixt you and Me, by breaking the terms of it, it shall be null and void on My part, as I shall withhold the blessings I promised in that covenant to confer on you on condition of your obedience.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Each day for a year; so there should have been forty years to come, but God was pleased mercifully to accept of the time past as a part of that time.

My breach of promise, that as you have first broken the covenant between you and me, by breaking the terms or conditions of it, so I will make it void on my part, by denying you the blessings promised in that covenant, and to be given to you in case of your obedience. So you shall see that the breach of promise wherewith you charged me, Numbers 14:3, lies at your door, and was forced from me by your perfidiousness. Or, my breach; either passively, i.e. your breaking off from me, as such pronouns are oft used, as Genesis 1:4 Isaiah 53:11 56:7; or actively, i.e. my breaking off or departing from you, and stopping the current of my blessings towards you; you shall feel by experience how sad your condition is when I withdraw my grace and favour from you.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

After the number of days in which ye searched the land,

even forty days,.... For so long they were searching it, Numbers 13:25,

each day for a year; reckoning each day for a year, forty days for forty years, as in Ezekiel 4:6,

shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years: which number is given, being a round one, otherwise it was but thirty eight years and a half ere they were all cut off, and their children entered the land:

and ye shall know my breach of promise; God never makes any breach of promise; his covenant he will not break, nor alter what is gone out of his lips; men break their promises, and transgress the covenant they have made with him, but he never breaks his, Psalm 89:34; this should rather be rendered only, "ye shall know my breach"; experience a breach made upon them by him, upon their persons and families by consuming them in the wilderness: the Targum of Jonathan is,"and ye shall know what ye have murmured against me;''this same word is used in the plural in Job 33:10, and is by the Targum rendered "murmurings" or "complaints"; and so the sense is, ye shall know by sad experience the evil of complaining and murmuring against me. The Vulgate Latin version is,"ye shall know my vengeance;''and so the Septuagint,"ye shall know the fury of my anger''which give the sense, though not a literal version of the words.

Geneva Study Bible

After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye {p} shall know my breach of promise.

(p) Whether my promise is true or not.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

34. my alienation] my opposition. Ye shall experience what it means to be opposed and hindered by me. The subst. occurs in Job 33:10 only. For the verb cf. Numbers 30:6 (R.V. ‘disallow’), Numbers 32:7 (R.V. ‘discourage’).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 34. - After the number of the days... each day for a year. It is said, and truly, that the connection between the two periods was arbitrary, and that the apparent correspondence lay only upon the surface. Exactly for this reason it was the better fitted to fix itself in the mind of a nation incapable of following a deeper and more spiritual analogy of guilt and punishment. It served the purpose which God had in view, viz., to make them feel that the quantity as well as the quality of their punishment was entirely due to themselves; and it needed no other justification. If God assigns reasons at all, he assigns such as can be understood by those to whom he speaks. Ye shall know my breach of promise. תְּנוּאָתִי. The noun only occurs elsewhere in Job 33:10, but the verb is found in Numbers 32:7 in the sense of "discouraging," or "turning away" (Septuagint, ἰνατί διαστρέφετε). Here it must mean "my withdrawal," or "my turning aside, from you." They should know by sad experience that "with the froward" God will "show" himself "froward" (Psalm 18:26). Numbers 14:34

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"After the number of the forty days that he have searched the land, shall ye bear your iniquity, (reckoning) a day for a year, and know My turning away from you," or תּנוּאה, abalienatio, from נוא (Numbers 32:7).