And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
A generation stood at the edge of the land they had been promised, refused to go in, and God sent them back. Verse 33 spells out the cost. Their own lives were forfeit. Their sons and daughters would also spend forty years in the desert, carrying the weight of a choice that was never theirs.
The people had cried that it would have been better to die in the wilderness. God's answer takes that complaint and hands it back to them as a verdict.
God's answer was this: You say you wish you had died in the wilderness — you shall die in the wilderness. "As for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness." God says: you will have to die, only it will take you forty years to do it. They must know death.
Older translations read that the children would "wander in the wilderness" and "bear your whoredoms." The ESV has them "be shepherds in the wilderness" and "suffer for your faithlessness."
Some might say the timing was wrong, or that the Amorites' guilt was not yet full. One commentator rejects that.
It is of the greatest importance to note here that it was unbelief that kept Israel out of Canaan... They knew nothing and thought nothing about the iniquity of the Amorites. Scripture is as plain as possible: "They could not enter in" — not because of the iniquity of the Amorites; not because the time had not come — but simply "because of unbelief." They ought to have entered. They were responsible to do so; and they were judged for not doing so. The way was open.
The same writer traces the collapse to its root: they lost sight of the land itself. Instead of going on "in simple dependence upon His omnipotent arm, they provoked Him by their unbelief, despised the pleasant land, and were compelled to turn back again into that great and terrible wilderness."
What does it mean to "bear" a sin? The law uses the word with one settled sense.
If you want to see the connection of bearing sin in Isaiah 53:12 with the punishment due to it, you have only to compare Leviticus 5:1, 17; ch. 17:16; ch. 20:19; ch. 24:15; Numbers 5:31; ch. 9:13; ch. 14:34; ch. 30:15. In all of them you will see it means coming under all the consequences of the sin committed, and being answerable for it before God. So it is spoken of particular sins, as idolatry, Numbers 14:33.
The parents had said their little ones would become plunder. Those same children are the ones God keeps, though the forty years fall on them too.
In them, those who had wanted to die in the wilderness would die there. Their little ones, whom they had mourned over as certain to fall to the enemy, would be brought into the land. Meanwhile those children would bear the consequences of their fathers' sin, as was needful for the children of such fathers: for each day of fruitless search, a year in the wilderness. Thank God, however: because He Himself appointed these years, we cannot call them fruitless. Shall we say that of any of the Lord's ways with us here? No — the more painful, the more profitable. Divine love could inflict no useless pain, just as it cannot withhold the pain that profits.
The believing few did not escape the march.
God will deal with them according to their faith. They shall perish in the wilderness, just as they wished. He will bring only the faithful ones and the children into the land. Even those must undergo, on their march, the consequences of the unbelief of the mass. However, other hopes and other consolations will be their portion.
The forty years were self-inflicted. God did not respond by withdrawing.
If Israel brings a pilgrimage of forty years upon themselves, the Lord will be in the wilderness with them for forty years... The God of the camp is the Guide and Companion of the camp. He may be grieved, and He may have to show His displeasure, but He never leaves them. His arm is not shortened, nor is His ear heavy.
- Cause — Unbelief kept them out, not God's timing and not the Amorites. The way was open, and God judged them for refusing it.
- Sentence — They had said they wished to die in the wilderness. God made their own words the terms of their punishment.
- Bearing — To "bear" a sin means coming under all its consequences. It means answering for it before God.
- Reach — The cost spread past the guilty. Their children and the faithful few marched the same desert.
- Result — God appointed the years, so none of them were wasted. He stayed in the wilderness the whole forty with them.
After the number of the days in which ye have searched out the land, forty days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities forty years, and ye shall know mine estrangement [from you].
Israel stood at the border of Canaan, searched the land for forty days, then refused to go in. God's sentence matches the sin — a year of wandering for each day of searching — and it ends with a hard word: they will know His displeasure.
The forty years were not an arbitrary number. The people had said aloud that they wished they had died in the desert, and God simply granted the request — slowly.
God's answer was this: You say you wish you had died in the wilderness — you shall die in the wilderness... Says God, You will have to die, only it will take you forty years to do it. They must know death.
God then deals with them by the measure of their own faith.
But now God Himself steps in. They will be dealt with according to their faith; they shall perish in the wilderness, according to their wish. Only the faithful and the children will be brought into the land. But on their march they must still go through the consequences of the unbelief of the crowd.
The wandering was measured out, a year for each day. One writer then asks a harder question: were those years wasted?
The children they had mourned over, as certain to fall to the enemy, would be brought into the land. Meanwhile they would bear the consequences of their fathers' sin, as was needful for the children of such fathers: for each day of fruitless search, a year in the wilderness. Thank God, however, that because God appointed these years, we cannot call them fruitless. Shall we say so at last of any of the Lord's ways with us here? No — the more painful, the more profitable. Divine love could inflict no useless pain, just as it cannot withhold the pain that profits.
Older translations render the closing phrase "you shall know my breach of promise." One writer explains what that phrase means.
"My breach of promise": "alienation" or withdrawal from something; hence, figuratively, "enmity."
They had already accused God of doing that very thing. Their charge now comes back on them as the sentence.
They despised their hope, and it is taken away. Not one over twenty would enter the land, except Caleb and Joshua. The little ones, whom they pretended to care about, God would bring in. In forty years that generation would waste away in the wilderness. So they would know God's breach of promise. They had charged God with bringing them to the land to die by the sword (v. 3). Now their own dreadful words come back on them as judgment.
Caleb and Joshua had not shared the unbelief. They still shared the forty years.
Caleb and Joshua had to go the long way round too. They had not joined the people in the evil. But the unbelief of the others had made the march painful and hard, and they had to go along with the people and bear part of it. This is what we must make up our minds to. If the Church has failed, we must make up our minds to accompany it in its course of sorrow, though not in its course of sin.
Commentators differ over whether this verse sets a rule for reading prophetic time. Some treat it as a precedent in Scripture for counting a prophetic day as a year.
But allow a year to pass for each day; that is, 483 years from the command to rebuild Jerusalem... For this plan of allowing a year for a day we have a precedent in Scripture. (See Numbers 14:34.)
Others think this one case cannot carry that much weight.
God dealt with Israel in the desert to repay their sin. That is plainly a weak basis for interpreting symbolic prophecies given many centuries later.
The sentence ends a chapter, but not the story.
But even after all this, the very next chapter begins, "When you come into the land." All their sin does not change it: they are looked at as if they were already there.
- Their word. They said they wished to die in the desert; God gave them just that, stretched over forty years.
- Their measure. Forty days of faithless searching set the scale: a year of wandering for each day.
- Their charge. They accused God of leading them out to die. His words "you shall know my displeasure" hand that accusation back as judgment.
- Their company. Caleb and Joshua bore the long march too — sharing the sorrow of failure without sharing the sin.
- Their God. God appointed the wandering in love, not as useless pain, and the next chapter still says, "When you come into the land."