Now the days in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we had come over the torrent Zered, were thirty-eight years; until the whole generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, as Jehovah had sworn unto them.
One line covers a whole era: thirty-eight years from Kadesh-barnea to the brook Zered. The count ended only when a whole generation of fighting men had died, which raises two questions — why the long delay, and what changed when the counting stopped?
The number covers the gap between the second and third stage of Israel's journey out of Egypt. One writer lines up the stages with the time each took:
They had started from Egypt for Sinai... So their arrival at Sinai was, in a sense, the completion of the first stage of the journey. The second was Kadesh Barnea, reached by the people before the end of the second year after the Exodus. And the third was the plains of Moab, having left the wilderness for ever, when they had crossed the brook Zered. Sinai to Kadesh is eleven days of travel. Between Kadesh and the brook Zered thirty-eight years ran by.
Nothing in the route required thirty-eight years. The delay began with a decision made at Kadesh:
These men had made a choice at Kadesh. They did not have the faith to go up and conquer the land of Canaan, as Caleb and Joshua had urged them to do. Frightened by the enemy, they had rejected God's desire for them to have it.
So the years were not spent covering ground. One writer sees the whole stretch as a trial:
The flesh is put on trial with God: thirty-eight years going through all this process instead of eleven days.
The count ran on until the fighting men were gone. God had said in advance that it would happen:
Israel was now told to move on. It had been 38 years since they left Kadesh Barnea, where they refused to enter the land. The men of that earlier generation had died, just as the Lord had told them they would (vs.14-15).
Israel found it harder to accept that sentence than to hear it. One writer draws out the lesson:
It is very hard to walk humbly and patiently in the path that our own failure has made necessary for us. Israel's unbelief, in refusing to go up into the land, meant that, in the way God governed them, they had to turn back and wander in the wilderness for forty years. They were unwilling to submit to this. They kicked against it. They could not bow their necks to the yoke they now had to wear.
Moses does not stand outside the story as he retells it. He includes himself — our leaving Kadesh-barnea, and we crossed the brook. That small word carries weight:
But what wonderful grace! The LORD went along with them, and of course the faithful turned back just as much as the unfaithful. How good the Lord is! ... Moses says, "We turned," not merely "You." "So we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the LORD told me. And we traveled around Mount Seir many days."
The wandering did not just fade out. It ended at a place they could point to:
They had truly left the wilderness. The thirty-eight years of wandering there were over, and the real journey had started again. They were not turning back into Egypt now. When they crossed the brook Zered, the wilderness testing was over, and they were truly bound for Canaan.
The same number turns up again in a man who lay helpless for thirty-eight years. One writer sets the two side by side:
The man had lain ill for exactly the same number of years as Israel had withered away in the wilderness — Deut. 2:14-16. God in grace gave Israel the land when all the men of war were gone. In the same way, grace meets the poor man's full need when his strength was gone and he had no one to help.
- Eleven days, thirty-eight years. Sinai to Kadesh was eleven days. Kadesh to the brook Zered took thirty-eight years. The gap measures unbelief, not distance.
- A choice, not a route. The delay traces back to one decision at Kadesh: fear of the enemy, and refusal of what God wanted them to have.
- Flesh on trial. Those years put the flesh on trial. The same process took thirty-eight years instead of eleven days.
- The yoke they would not bow to. It is very hard to walk humbly in a path our own failure has made necessary. Israel kicked against it.
- Zered ends it. When they crossed that brook, the testing was over and the nation was truly bound for Canaan. Grace acted when their strength was gone.
Moreover the hand of Jehovah was against them to destroy them from the midst of the camp, until they were consumed.
This verse closes the story of Israel's long wandering, and it names the cause of all those deaths: God Himself. How could the same God who kept this people alive in the desert also be the One who removed them from the camp?
The generation in view had stood at the border of Canaan and refused to go in. Commentators trace the wandering back to that refusal. God would not go with them on their own terms.
So the people had to turn back into the wilderness, and wander there for forty years. There was nothing else for it. They would not go up into the land with God in simple faith. And He would not go up with them in their self-will and self-confidence. So they had to accept the consequence of their disobedience. If they would not enter the land, they must fall in the wilderness.
Moses does not blame the desert, the distance, or the enemy. He says the hand that was against them was the LORD's. Writers call this God's government: His righteous dealing with His own people. One of them adds that mercy was at work even here.
God forgave Israel, and acted for His Name's sake. But there was also the righteous government of God… The way He governed the rebellious upheld His Name as a merciful God, for that generation died off little by little in the wilderness.
One writer counts the cost of unbelief: a short distance, a long delay.
Israel are now at their journey's end, though they are still in the wilderness. To make a journey of a few days, they have spent the life of a whole generation. They have come a long way, with toil and hardship, to a place where faith in God would have brought them easily and long ago. Still, God triumphs over all of this. He uses it as a lesson for them, and as an encouragement to trust Him.
Another writer turns the same lesson on us. A long, hard road is not always the road God first offered.
This tells believers today that our own wilderness history does not have to be long. But we are selfish by nature. So God must put us through the trial of hard circumstances, to teach us that obedience is the only way of blessing.
Those who had believed did not escape the wandering. They accepted God's will, shared the hardship, and found Him with them.
Moses and all who had not shared in the unbelief of the people submitted to the sovereign will of the Lord. How strange it would have been if they had complained at sharing in the judgment of the mass of the people… The faithful ones shared the trials, the sorrows, the hardships of the murmuring multitudes. And the LORD was with them in gracious tenderness… "These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing." The people had accused Him, insulted Him and disbelieved His word. Yet He carried this people through the great wilderness so that they lacked nothing.
The verse ends a sentence and opens a campaign.
The war to take the land is now about to begin. God has carried out His threat against the earlier generation, and the obstacle to taking the land is gone. So they are encouraged to go forward, doubting nothing.
One writer sets Israel's lost years beside a man the Lord Jesus healed.
In John 5 there was a man whose case only the Son of God could meet. The Lord Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." The man had lain ill exactly as many years as Israel had withered away in the wilderness — Deuteronomy 2:14-16. God in grace gave Israel the land once all the men of war had died. In the same way, grace met this poor man's full need when his strength was gone and he had no one to help him.
- Cause. They would not enter the land with God; so they had to fall in the wilderness instead.
- Hand. The deaths were not an accident. They were the LORD's own righteous government, and mercy showed even here: that generation died off little by little, not all at once.
- Cost. A journey of a few days took the life of a whole generation, and God still turned the waste into a lesson.
- Company. Those who had believed walked every year of it too, and through all of it the people lacked nothing.
- Clearance. The conquest began only when the last of that generation was gone. Grace gives the inheritance when human strength has run out.
And it came to pass when all the men of war were consumed, having died off from among the people,
Deuteronomy 2:16 is a closing line. The fighting generation that left Egypt is gone, and the sentence God passed on them for refusing the land has run its full course. Everything that follows in the chapter waits on this one fact.
The verse marks a clock running out. Moses counts the years from Kadesh Barnea, the place where the people refused to enter the land.
Israel was now told to go further. It had been 38 years since they left Kadesh Barnea, at the time when they refused to enter the land. The men of that earlier generation had died, just as the Lord had told them they would.
These men died because they would not trust God with the land. One commentator traces the whole outcome back to that unbelief.
They could not trust God to bring them into the land. No, they thought He had brought them into the wilderness to die there. Surely we may say, they reaped according to their dark unbelief. The ten false witnesses died by the plague. The many thousands who believed their false report had to turn back into the wilderness. There they wandered up and down for forty years, and then died and were buried.
"All the men of war" means all. A second count at the end of those years matched God's word man for man.
These males of twenty years and over numbered just over 600,000. Not one of them was left alive who had been in the earlier count, except Caleb and Joshua. Turn back to Numbers 14 and read verses 20-32 again. There we see with what absolute exactness God fulfils the word He has spoken. A solemn fact for the unbeliever, but one in which we who believe can heartily rejoice.
The wilderness years changed what Israel was. One writer sees it in what the record leaves out.
They are not pilgrims any more, but wanderers. If they had any aim, for these forty years it was mere self-preservation. That is why the record of them is not given to us... Circumcision likewise ceases, as we see by the renewal of it when they enter Canaan. So the very sign of their covenant with the Lord is lost. Grace alone carries them at last through the Jordan, and gives them the land they turn back from here.
The verse is immediately followed by the Lord speaking to Moses. One commentator treats that sequence as proof that Deuteronomy is arranged, not assembled at random — a fresh word arrives at exactly the point the old generation is gone, and it is a word about leaving Moab and Ammon alone.
They were tested after this by another call to hold back... But the same duty remains for them. We see from this that it is mere ignorance to suppose that there is no divine system in the book. To me this is even more striking in Deuteronomy than in the books before it. We can all understand an orderly arrangement when types are set out one after another. Here, in these moral teachings, the order is just as sensible, only in another way.
Israel received the land only when its fighting men were dead. One writer sets that order — strength gone first, then God acting — beside a helpless man who had lain ill for just as many years.
The man had been lying there exactly the same number of years as Israel had wasted away in the wilderness — Deuteronomy 2:14-16. God in grace gave Israel the land when all the men of war were gone. In the same way, grace meets the poor man's full need, when his strength was gone and he had no one to help.
- Sentence. Unbelief at Kadesh Barnea cost a whole generation the land. This verse records the day that sentence ran out.
- Silence. The thirty-eight years leave almost no history, and even circumcision, the sign of the covenant, stopped.
- Exactness. Not one man of that first count survived except Caleb and Joshua. God's word came true to the last man — solemn for the unbeliever, a joy for the believer.
- Speech. The moment the last man of war dies, God speaks to Moses again, and the march resumes under fresh orders.
- Grace. God gave the land when Israel's own strength had run out — the same way grace meets a man too weak to help himself.