Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 14:40
And they rose up early in the morning, and got them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we [be here], and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.
40. the top of the mountain ] Perhaps a particular hill in the south of the Negeb, close to Kadesh: but it may denote more generally ‘the high ground of the hill country.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Num 14:40-45
But they presumed to go up.
A presumptuous enterprise and its disastrous termination
In these verses we have an illustration of–
1. The sad perversity of sinful human nature.
2. The confession of sin, and persistence in sin.
3. The great difficulty of walking humbly and patiently in the path which our sin has rendered necessary for us.
I. The presumptuous enterprise.
1. In opposition to the command of the Lord.
2. Despite the remonstrance of Moses.
3. Without the symbol of the Divine Presence and the presence of the Divinely-appointed leader.
II. The disastrous termination of this presumptuous enterprise.
1. Disgraceful defeat.
2. Sore slaughter.
3. Bitter sorrow.
Conclusion–From the whole let us learn the sin and the folly of entering upon any enterprises, and especially difficult ones, in our own strength. Apart from Me, said Christ, ye can do nothing. This is applicable to–
1. Spiritual life in its origin and progress. The attempt in our own strength to lead a religious, godly life, is sure to end in sad disappointment and utter failure.
2. Spiritual conflict. Unless we take to ourselves the whole armour of God, our spiritual foes will be too many and too mighty for us. We can conquer only through Christ.
3. Spiritual service. Our efforts to benefit our fellow-men will succeed only as they are made in reliance upon the blessing of God. We can bless others only as He blesses us (comp. 1Co 3:5-7). (W. Jones.)
Unauthorised enterprises
The man who forsakes Gods commandments forsakes his own happiness.
1. The importance of improving present opportunities. You have a throne of grace to go to; go there to-day, lest by delay your anxiety, though earnest, should be as unavailing as was that of Israel to go to Canaan, and you are compelled to say with the prophet (Jer 8:20).
2. The necessity of Gods blessing on all our undertakings. We do not say that man, without Gods blessing, never gets what he wants; he often does, but not what is good for him; all things work together for good only to those who have this blessing. And further, those undertakings which, with the Divine blessing, are easy, without it are impossible.
3. The connection which subsists between transgression and sorrow. Sorrow is of two kinds; first, godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of–such was that of Peter; and, secondly, the sorrow of unavailing regret, when the day of recovery has passed away. It was this unavailing sorrow that Israel felt when the Lord said, Thou shalt not enter into My rest. In a spirit of rebellion they resolve, We will go up; but they went without the Lord, and they were driven back.
4. The danger that results from an unbelieving heart!
5. We see from this passage the holiness of that God with whom we have to do. While every provision is made for the returning penitent, the impenitent transgressor will certainly be destroyed. God never tolerates sin; no, not even in His own people.
6. Finally, we should learn from this subject our need of special sanctifying grace; for no outward advantages can secure personal holiness. (George Breay, B. A.)
Religious explanation of failure
Because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you. Even that is a word of comfort. The comfort is not far to fetch, even from the desert of this stern fact. The comfort is found in the fact that the Lord will be with those who have not turned away from Him. The law operates in two opposite ways. Law is love, when rightly seized and applied; and love is law, having all the pillars of its security and all the dignity of its righteousness to support it in all the transitions of its experience. The reason why we fail is that God has gone from us. Putting the case so, we put it wrongly. God has not gone from us; we have gone from God. The Church is nothing without its godliness; it is less than nothing: it is not only the negation of strength, it is the utter and most helpless weakness. Israel was the Church in the wilderness, and Israel was nothing without its God. The number might be six hundred thousand fighting men, and they would go down like a dry wooden fence before a raging fire, if the Lord was not in the midst. They were not men without Him. The Church lives, moves, and has its being in God–not in some high or deep metaphysical sense only, but in the plain and obvious sense of the terms: that it has no being or existence outside God. When it forgets to pray, it loses the art of war; when the Church forgets to put on the beautiful garments of holiness, though it be made up of a thousand Samsons, it cannot strike one fatal blow at the enemy. Count the Church by the volume of its prayer; register the strength of the Church by the purity and completeness of its consecration. If you number the Church in millions, and tell not what it is at the altar and at the cross, you have returned the census of a cemetery, not the statistics of a living, mighty, invincible host. Genius is nothing, learning is nothing, organisation is a sarcasm and an irony–apart from that which gives every one of them value and force–the praying heart, the trustful spirit. The Church conquers by holiness. (J. Parker, D. D.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 40. We – will go up unto the place, c.] They found themselves on the very borders of the land, and they heard God say they should not enter it, but should be consumed by a forty years’ wandering in the wilderness notwithstanding, they are determined to render vain this purpose of God, probably supposing that the temporary sorrow they felt for their late rebellion would be accepted as a sufficient atonement for their crimes. They accordingly went up, and were cut down by their enemies; and why? God went not with them. How vain is the counsel of man against the wisdom of God! Nature, poor, fallen human nature, is ever running into extremes. This miserable people, a short time ago, thought that though they had Omnipotence with them they could not conquer and possess the land! Now they imagine that though God himself go not with them, yet they shall be sufficient to drive out the inhabitants, and take possession of their country! Man is ever supposing he can either do all things or do nothing; he is therefore sometimes presumptuous, and at other times in despair. Who but an apostle, or one under the influence of the same Spirit, can say, I can do ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST who strengtheneth me?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Gat them up, i.e. designed, or attempted, or prepared themselves to go up; for that they were not yet actually gone up, plainly appears from Num 14:42,44, and from Deu 1:41. Things designed or endeavoured in Scripture phrase are oft said to be done. See on Gen 37:21,22; Exo 8:18.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
40-45. they rose up early in themorning, and gat them up into the top of the mountainNotwithstandingthe tidings that Moses communicated and which diffused a generalfeeling of melancholy and grief throughout the camp, the impressionwas of very brief continuance. They rushed from one extreme ofrashness and perversity to another, and the obstinacy of theirrebellious spirit was evinced by their active preparations to ascendthe hill, notwithstanding the divine warning they had received not toundertake that enterprise.
for we have sinnedthatis, realizing our sin, we now repent of it, and are eager to do asCaleb and Joshua exhorted usor, as some render it, thoughwe have sinned, we trust God will yet give us the land of promise.The entreaties of their prudent and pious leader, who represented tothem that their enemies, scaling the other side of the valley, wouldpost themselves on the top of the hill before them, were disregarded.How strangely perverse the conduct of the Israelites, who, shortlybefore, were afraid that, though their Almighty King was with them,they could not get possession of the land; and yet now they act stillmore foolishly in supposing that, though God were not with them, theycould expel the inhabitants by their unaided efforts. Theconsequences were such as might have been anticipated. The Amalekitesand Canaanites, who had been lying in ambuscade expecting theirmovement, rushed down upon them from the heights and became theinstruments of punishing their guilty rebellion.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And they rose up early in the morning,…. The next morning after they had heard the bad news of their consumption in the wilderness; not being able, perhaps, to sleep that night with the thoughts of it, and being now in a great haste to go up and possess the land of Canaan, as they were before to return to Egypt:
and gat them up into the top of the mountain; which was the way the spies went into the land of Canaan, Nu 13:17; this they did not actually ascend, as appears from Nu 14:44; but they determined upon it, and got themselves ready for it:
saying, lo, we [be here]; this they said either to one another, animating each other to engage in the enterprise; or to Moses and Joshua, signifying that they were ready to go up and possess the land, if they would put themselves at the head of them, and take the command and direction of them;
and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised: the land of Canaan:
for we have sinned; in not going up to possess it, when they were bid to go, and in listening to the spies that brought an ill report of it, and by murmuring against Moses and Aaron, and the Lord himself, and proposing to make them a captain and return to Egypt, Nu 14:2: but this acknowledgment and repentance were not very sincere, by what follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Verses 40-45:
The sudden death of the ten spies brought home to the people the enormity of what they had done. Early the next morning, they gathered on a nearby hilltop, and set out on an expedition to take the Land in spite of God’s command.
“Presume, aphal, “to lift self up.” They tried to go in their own strength what they refused to do in the strength of Jehovah.
Moses warned of the certain failure of their attempt. He refused to accompany them, and did not permit the Ark of the Covenant to lead them.
Israel suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Amalekites, and the Canaanites who lived in that region.
“Hormah,” possibly the modern Tell es-Sheriah, about midway between Gaza and Beer-sheba. This name occurs again in Nu 21:1-3; Jos 12:14; 15:20; 19:4; Jg 1:17; 1Sa 30:26-30; 1Ch 4:30. Since it was not uncommon for different cities to be known by the same name, it is uncertain that all these references are to the one in the present text.
Other references to this incident: Ps 78:40-54; 1Co 10:5; Heb 3:7-19.
Israel’s failure at Kadesh-barnea is a picture of the results of unbelief in the child of God today. It typifies the loss of blessing, not the loss of salvation.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(40) Into the top of the mountain.Or, towards the top of the mountain. This appears to have been the same route as that by which the spies had gone into the south country of Juda. (See Num. 13:17.) It seems to be implied in w. 44, 45 that the people did not actually ascend the top of the adjoining mountain.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE PRESUMPTION OF THE PEOPLE PUNISHED, Num 14:40-45.
40. The top of the mountain Some plateau on the northern border of the valley mentioned in Num 14:25. Lo,
we will go up
For we have sinned The Hebrew , for, is susceptible of two renderings: (1.) Although. This sense would imply an Antinomian view of the divine promise as wholly unconditional. (2.) For, in the sense of, “we admit that we have sinned, and we regret it.” In this case their confession was not of the heart but of the lips only, involving the radical error of Universalism that, after the final sentence of the sinner, any expression of regret is sufficient to unlock the gates of hell and open wide the portals of heaven. But there are in the divine government irreversible verdicts. Repentance may be too late.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Num 14:40. They rose up early in the morning The people, struck with a temporary concern, a transient fit of slavish fear, as the sequel too clearly proves; were now as forward to advance as they had been backward before; and, though dissuaded by Moses from their rash attempt, still prone to disobey, they ventured forth; the consequence was such as might well be expected; for the Lord was not amongst them, Num 14:42. By the Canaanites, mentioned in the 45th verse, are meant one of the nations only, the Amorites, Deu 1:44. Concerning Hormath, (Num 14:45.) see chap. Num 21:3.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Observe, the LORD had commanded the people to go back towards the way by the Red Sea. But they, self-willed and presumptuous, wilt go up towards Canaan. Alas! what a continual perverseness there is in our unhumbled nature! What unbelief and daring presumption. My soul! look within. Am I not too frequently doing the same, when I go out in my own strength, and in my own righteousness, against the enemies of my salvation? Reader! do not forget what the sacred historian so particularly describes here, that nevertheless, though the people went up, the ark of the covenant of the LORD went not with them. If JESUS, whom that ark represented, go not with us to the battle, the great enemy of souls, and the world of foes, like the Amalekites and the Canaanites, will soon discomfit our weak powers and smite us even unto Hormah. LORD! I would pray carry me not up hence, no not even to Canaan, itself, except thy presence go with me. And may it be my happiness, like one of old, to go forth in the strength of the LORD GOD, and make mention of thy righteousness even of thine only. Psa 71:16 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Num 14:40 And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we [be here], and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.
Ver. 40. We have sinned. ] Here was confession of sin, without confusion for sin. So was that of Saul. 1Sa 15:30
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Lo. Figure of speech Asterismos. App-6.
sinned. Hebrew. chat’a. App-44.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
rose up: Deu 1:41, Ecc 9:3, Mat 7:21-23, Mat 26:11, Mat 26:12, Luk 13:25
for we have sinned: We are sensible of our sin, and repent of it; and are now ready to do as Caleb and Joshua exhorted us. Or, though we have sinned, yet we hope God will make good his promise.
Reciprocal: Num 13:17 – the mountain
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
14:40 And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we [be here], and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have {q} sinned.
(q) They confessed their sin in rebelling against God, but did not consider their offence in going up without God’s commandment.