Numbers 14
Orthodox Jewish Bible
1 And Kol HaEdah lifted up their voice, and cried; and HaAm wept that night. 2 And Kol Bnei Yisroel murmured against Moshe and against Aharon: and the Kol HaEdah said unto them, If only we had died in Eretz Mitzrayim! Or if only we had died in this midbar! 3 And why hath Hashem brought us unto this land, to fall by the cherev, that nasheinu (our wives) and our children should be as plunder? Were it not better for us to go back unto Mitzrayim? 4 And they said one to another, Let us make a Rosh (Leader), and let us go back unto Mitzrayim.

5 Then Moshe and Aharon fell on their faces before Kol Kehal Adat Bnei Yisroel. 6 And Joshua ben Nun, and Kalev ben Yephunneh, which were of them that explored HaAretz, tore their clothes: 7 And they spoke unto Kol Adat Bnei Yisroel, saying, HaAretz, which we passed through to explore it, is a tovah haaretz me'od me'od. 8 If Hashem delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land zavat cholov udevash. 9 Only rebel not ye against Hashem, neither fear ye the Am HaAretz; for they are lachmeinu (our bread): their protection is departed from them, and Hashem is with us: fear them not. 10 But Kol HaEdah talked of stoning them with avanim. And the Kavod Hashem appeared in the Ohel Mo'ed before Kol Bnei Yisroel.

11 And Hashem said unto Moshe, How long will this people treat Me with contempt? And how long will it be until they believe in Me, for all the otot which I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with dever (pestilence), and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.

13 And Moshe said unto Hashem, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for Thou broughtest up this people in Thy ko'ach [might] from among them;) 14 And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land; for they have heard that Thou Hashem art among this people, that Thou Hashem art seen eye to eye, and that Thy Anan standeth over them, and that Thou goest before them, by day in an Ammud Anan, and in an Ammud Eish by night. 15 Now if Thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the Goyim which have heard the fame of Thee will speak, saying, 16 Because Hashem was not able to bring this people into HaAretz which He promised them by oath, therefore He hath slaughtered (shachat) them in the midbar. 17 And now, I beseech thee, let the Ko'ach Adonoi be great, according as Thou hast spoken, saying, 18 Hashem is slow of anger, and of rav chesed, forgiving avon and peysha, and by no means exonerating the guilty, visiting the avon of the avot upon the banim unto the third and fourth generation. 19 Selach (forgive!), I beseech thee, the avon of this people according unto the greatness of Thy chesed, just as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Mitzrayim even until now.

20 And Hashem said, I have pardoned according to thy word [of petition]: 21 But as surely as I live, Kol HaAretz (all the Earth) shall be filled with the Kavod Hashem. 22 Because all those men which have seen My kavod, and My otot (miraculous signs), which I performed in Mitzrayim and in the midbar, and have tested Me now these ten times, and have not paid heed to My voice; 23 Surely they shall not see HaAretz which I swore unto their avot, neither shall any of them that treated Me with contempt see it: 24 But Avdi Kalev, because he hath a ruach acheret in him, and hath followed after Me fully, him will I bring into HaAretz whereinto he went; and his zera shall inherit it. 25 (Now the Amaleki and the Kena'ani dwelt in the valley.) Tomorrow turn and get you into the midbar by the way of the Yam Suph.

26 And Hashem spoke unto Moshe and unto Aharon, saying, 27 How long shall I bear with this Edah Hara'ah, which murmur against Me? I have heard the murmurings of the Bnei Yisroel, which they murmur against Me. 28 Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith Hashem, as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do to you: 29 Your corpses shall fall in this midbar; and all that were numbered of you, according to your entire mispar (number, census), from twenty years old and upward which have murmured against Me. 30 Not one of you shall come into HaAretz, concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, except for Kalev ben Yephunneh, and Joshua ben Nun. 31 But your little ones, which ye said would be plunder, them will I bring in, and they shall know HaAretz which ye have rejected. 32 But as for you, your corpses, they shall fall in this midbar. 33 And your banim shall wander [wandering ro'im] in the midbar arba'im shanah, and bear [the penalty of] your whoredoms [zenut, spiritual disloyalty and rebellion], until the last of your corpses lies in the midbar. 34 After the number of the days in which ye explored HaAretz, even arba'im, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even arba'im shanah, and ye shall know My Tenu'a (Opposition). 35 I, Hashem, have spoken, I will surely do it unto this Kol HaEdah, that are gathered together against Me: in this midbar they shall come to an end, and there they shall die.

36 And the anashim, which Moshe sent to spy out the land, who returned, and made Kol HaEdah to murmur against him, the ones spreading a dibbah (bad report, slander) about HaAretz, 37 Even those anashim that did bring up the evil report of HaAretz, died by the maggefah before Hashem. 38 But Joshua ben Nun, and Kalev ben Yephunneh survived of the anashim that went to explore HaAretz.

39 And Moshe told these sayings unto Kol Bnei Yisroel: and HaAm mourned greatly. 40 And they rose up early in the boker, and went up into the height of the hill country, saying, Behold, we are here, and will go up unto the place which Hashem hath promised: for we have sinned. 41 And Moshe said, Why now do ye transgress the utterance of Hashem? This will not succeed. 42 Go not up, for Hashem is not among you; that ye be not struck down before your enemies. 43 For the Amaleki and the Kena'ani are there before you, and ye shall fall by the cherev: because ye are turned away from Hashem, therefore Hashem will not be with you. 44 But they presumed to go up unto the ridge of the mountain: nevertheless the Aron Brit Hashem, and Moshe, departed not out of the machaneh. 45 Then the Amaleki came down, and the Kena'ani which dwelt in that hill country, and struck them down, and put them to rout, even unto Chormah. [T.N. What have we learned so far from the Holy Bible? Some very disturbing revelations about the human condition, to be sure. We have learned that man is prone to evil (Ex 32:22), that humankind as seen from G-d’s point of view is blindly stubborn and recalcitrant against authority (Ex 32:9; 33:3,5; 34:9). Recalcitrant means hard to deal with and unyielding. But something more ominous has entered the picture in the book of Numbers. It turns out that the human condition is more depraved than we had seen in Leviticus, where out of corrupt human hearts had come sodomy (Lv 18:22; 20:13), bestiality, fornication, incest, and all manner of crimes worthy of death. But now in Num chp 14 we see man himself as a proud rebel who even has the arrogance to murmur and rise up in revolt against G-d his Creator and Savior. And for this crime the death sentence comes in Num 14:29, “Your corpses shall fall in this midbar.” The wages of sin is death. See Pro 14:12: There is a derech that seemeth yashar unto an ish, but the acharit (latter end, future) thereof are the drakhim of mavet. Mavet in the midbar! The guilty are condemned already. Already the ax is falling. Already the pit is dug. Already they are condemned. Already the terror of Mt Sinai is condemning the sinner, spearing the fornicator in his tent, executing the sodomites in their bed of iniquity. Already every mouth is stopped and the whole world is brought guilty before Hashem. There is none righteous, no not one. The man who fornicates in his heart with the harlot is guilty with the man actually in her bed. In Num chapter 25, we find a Hebrew man taking a Midianite woman into his tent to "shack up" with her there— that was the now very dated term once used before fornication became politically correct--"shacking up." Instead of making the woman one’s wife, one makes her his whore. But in Numbers chapter 25, only Phinhas the son of Elazar the son of Aaron the kohen was indignant. However, G-d was indignant and G-d's plague was at the door of their tent, ready to strike the fornicators. In Numbers we see G-d's wrath is ready to rain down on an unclean people. Every pornographic, lecherous, unclean wanton, with lust in deed or even in the imaginations of the evil heart, stands condemned already. Today we look around the prison yard of this world and witness a modern arrogant population of fornicators and homosexuals and pedophiles, brazenly bold, shamelessly parading their perversion and lasciviousness. They are careless of the condemnation of the Divine order from on High, that those who do such things will receive the death penalty they deserve. Millions of aborted fetuses litter the alleyways of the world's lust. With reprobate minds, modern rebels excuse their wantonness. Even though their evil deeds keep testifying against them, they remain uncontrite, unrepentant. They refuse to forsake their sin. Their wickedness should humble them, but, instead, they illegitimately accuse others, even G-d, and this goes on year after year, while they raise up an illegitimate generation of heathen offspring like themselves. And the generations of evil-doers are all the while oblivious of the fact that the death sentence has already come down from the Governor in Heaven. And the death sentence says to us one thing: condemned already! Mother and rebel daughter, condemned already! Father and rebel son, condemned already! The wrath of G-d is revealed from heaven against all fornication and debauchery. Jeremiah saw that a terrible burning fiery Holocaust of Exile was coming on his people and on Solomon's Temple. He saw the idolatry and spiritual harlotry of his generation, which was very much like our own evil generation. It overwhelmed him. He says, I sat alone, because of Thy hand, for Thou hast filled me with indignation. (Jer 15:17) Rav Sha'ul says to the Kehillah in Corinth, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And you're not aghast! You're not indignant! Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Malchut Hashem (the Kingdom of G-d 1C 6:9-11)! But you are proud! Shouldn't you have rather mourned? Do you not know to shun the fornicator so that he will wake up and realize he is already condemned to the fire of Gehinnom and must therefore flee fornication? The heart of man is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked, who can know it? (Jer 17:9) And all our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isa 64:6). Sin is like a wanton woman. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. We are lured to her bed of fornication by our own lusts, but in the end, her lovers are in the depths of hell, and she is bitter as wormwood. We are abandoned to our evil desires, punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the L-rd. The wicked shall be turned into hell, into shame and everlasting contempt (Dan 12:2). Why will you die, O sinner? The sinners in Zion are afraid. Who can bear everlasting burnings? Moshiach is coming! He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Do you not know that Moshiach came the first time mercifully to drink your portion of the wine of the wrath of G-d, the wrath you deserve? He was wounded for our transgressions, for our stubborn rebellion and uncleanness. How can you resist the G-d Who loves you and pursues you? He wants to pull you out of the fire so that you will be able to pull others out of the fire! But you are resisting Him, not realizing you are already guilty, already at the point of igniting and bursting into flames, condemned already. The fires of G-d’s wrath are already igniting in you, around you. Whoever has not believed is condemned already. Will you cry out for mercy, for clemency, for forgiveness? Do you realize and admit that you are a “dead man walking,” no matter how religious or pious you try to be? Do you understand that you deserve G-d’s chastisement, and yet in the mercy of G-d, the chastisement that brought us peace was upon Moshiach Tzidkeinu? Remember Lot’s wife. Instead of turning away in repentance and fleeing in remorse at sin, she looked back lingeringly at sin to her own destruction. Unless you repent you will all alike perish.]

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