Charles Ellicott Commentary Numbers 14

And all the children of Israel murmured— When the people murmured similarly in the wilderness of Sin (Exodus 16:2–3) against Moses and Aaron because they had brought them out into the wilderness, Moses assured them that in the evening they would know that it was Jehovah Himself who had brought them out from the land of Egypt (Exodus 16:6, Numbers 14:6). On the present occasion, their murmuring was not against Moses and Aaron only, but they openly rebelled against Jehovah Himself, to whom they ascribed, as a reproach, their exodus from the land of Egypt.

And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land...? — Better, And why does the Lord bring us into this land? — that is, the land of Canaan, as clearly appears from the words that follow (Compare Numbers 15:18, where the same Hiphil participle is used). The destruction that the Israelites feared at this time was not a destruction by famine or drought, but by the sword of the Amorites and of the children of the Anakim. (Compare Deuteronomy 1:27-28.)

That our wives and our children should be a prey— that is, should fall into the hands of the enemy after their entrance into the land of Canaan. (Compare Exodus 15:14-17.) It is possible, however, that the land through which the Israelites were passing may be included here and in Numbers 14:14.

Tore their clothes. —Compare to Leviticus 10:6 and Note.

Their defence is departed from them. —Literally, their shadow. This is a natural and frequently recurring figure of speech in the East, where protection from the scorching rays of the sun is a blessing of incalculable worth. (Psalms 17:8; Psalms 91:1; Isaiah 25:4; Isaiah 30:2.) The measure of the iniquity of the Canaanites was now full, and they were ripe for destruction. (Leviticus 18:25; Leviticus 20:23.)

But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. All the congregation here, as elsewhere, seems to denote the princes or chief men of the congregation; otherwise it is difficult to understand to whom the order was addressed to stone Joshua and Caleb.

Stoning appears to have been a mode of death commonly adopted in Egypt (Exodus 8:26). Under the Jewish law stoning was the ordinary, and, as some think, the only prescribed mode of death, and was inflicted as the punishment for crimes such as adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22; Deuteronomy 22:24), idolatry (Deuteronomy 13:10), witchcraft (Leviticus 20:27), sabbath-breaking (Numbers 15:35), and blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16).

Moses had feared the same outbreak of popular violence on a former occasion (Exodus 17:4), and, at a later period, David was threatened in a similar manner (1 Samuel 30:6).

And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation. The meaning probably is in the court of the Tabernacle, or, as some think, above the Tabernacle. (See the Targum of Jonathan and the Vulgate and Septuagint Versions.) The children of Israel could not have seen the glory of the Lord had it been manifested within the Tabernacle.