John Gill Commentary Numbers 14:33

"And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your whoredoms, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness." — Numbers 14:33 (ASV)

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years , &c.] Or "feed" ^F2 , as shepherds, who go from place to place, and seek fresh pasture for their sheep; it being the custom of a shepherd, as Aben Ezra observes, not to stand or rest in a place; and so like sheep grazing in a wilderness, where they have short commons, and wander about in search of better. These forty years are to be reckoned from their coming out of Egypt, from which they had now come about a year and a half:

and bear your whoredoms ; the punishment of their idolatries, which are frequently signified by this phrase, and particularly of the idolatry of the calf, which God threatened to punish whenever he visited for sin, (Exodus 32:34) ; and of other sins, as their murmurings, for it was on account of them their children wandered so long in the wilderness, and were kept out of the possession of the land of Canaan:

until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness ; everyone of them be consumed by death, save those before excepted, (Numbers 14:30) .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F2: (Myer wyhy) "erunt pascentes", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius, Junius & Tremellius; "pascent", Tigurine version, Piscator.