Daily Devotion | Numbers 14:26–38 | 2026 May 07

Title: Daily Devotion | Numbers 14:26–38 | 2026 May 07

Scripture: Numbers 14:26–38 (ESV, reference only)

Date: 2026 May 07

Speaker: Rev. John Chen

Transcribed, translated & edited by: Joseph Wang (Yufan)

All right, dear brothers and sisters, peace to you. We thank God for His grace. We have come to a new day to study the Daily Devotion. The passage we are studying today is Numbers 14:26–38. Because this chapter, chapter 14, is very important, we will examine it a little more slowly. There is no need to rush.

Yesterday we spoke about the conversation between God and Moses. Moses interceded, and God was angry. Then the passage today is where God declares His punishment upon the Israelites. All right, let us look at it.

The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you.’”

So here we see a principle, that is, discipline within the covenant. For the Israelites, God originally said that He would utterly destroy them, and that He would make Moses’ family into a great nation, and begin again. But because of Moses’ prayer, God did not do this.

But here we also see a prophecy. Very clearly, God would still in the end raise up another person to lead Israel and make them into a new people. Although Moses here, because of the grace God gave him, refused this, and still maintained the covenant, it is very clear that Moses had no way to bring new life to this congregation.

So for the Israelites, they still had to hope for another leader, one who could bring them a renewed life, a renewed covenant. And this leader, very clearly, is the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So from this perspective, the word of God still had to be fulfilled. God said that He would destroy this people and raise up another leader, and in the end this is indeed fulfilled again in the Lord Jesus Christ. There truly must be another head raised up, because if another one is not raised up, these people have no way to repent.

So we can also say this: although Moses refused God’s proposal in the end—and this refusal itself was because God gave grace to Moses, and God led Moses to reject such a thing—yet in the end this purpose is still fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. He becomes a new Head. Adam was the first federal head, and Christ becomes the second Head. In Him, a new people are created. Yes, this is a little supplement to what we spoke about yesterday.

Now God is going to punish them. The covenant still remains. God’s covenant with Israel still stands. But punishment must also be carried out. There must be discipline within the covenant. What kind of discipline?

“Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.” Everyone twenty years old and upward who grumbled against Me cannot enter in. Only Caleb and Joshua may enter. This is the first judgment. Your dead bodies will fall in the wilderness. Everyone twenty years old and upward—those who were able to go out to war—grumbled against Me, therefore all of you shall die in the wilderness.

Only two people can enter: Joshua and Caleb, because they had faith.

Then verse 31 tells them this: where does victory in battle come from? “But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.”

The word “know” used here is still a form related to the Hebrew word “yada,” a word we are already familiar with. Once again we see that the meaning of “know” in both the Old Testament and the New Testament is indeed different from the way we commonly understand it. “They shall know the land”—yada. It means that they will know it by enjoying it. God says, “I will bring them in, and they will enjoy it. They will know how wonderful this promised land truly is.”

This is the judgment upon the Israelites. Everyone twenty years old and upward will die. Only those two people may enter. The wives and children will go in.

Verse 32 continues to repeat the judgment upon them: “Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.” They are going to die. “And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.”

Although I will bring your children into the land, your children must still bear the consequence of your sin. That is, they too must wander in the wilderness for forty years. So this sinful generation must die, the wives and children will enter, but these children must still bear the consequence of this unfaithfulness, namely wandering in the wilderness for forty years.

Verse 34 explains the reason: “According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.”

In the Chinese New Translation Version, this is translated as “you will know that I am against you.”

Verse 35 is a summary declaration: “I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

So here God declares His judgment upon the congregation of Israel. Everyone twenty years old and upward will die in the wilderness. Their wives and children will enter the land. Their children must bear the consequence of their unfaithfulness and remain in the wilderness for forty years. The reason is that forty days correspond to forty years. God says, “This is My judgment upon you.”

So I think when God’s judgment—or to speak more accurately here, God’s discipline—came upon the people of Israel, this truly becomes a tremendous warning and reminder to us. As Paul says, these things happened as warnings for us.

This matter is terrifying. They wanted to return to Egypt. They did not want to enter the land. And in the end, what happened? They became wanderers in the wilderness for forty years. This discipline was so severe.

And this also truly lets us see that this was indeed a very tragic discipline. Why? Think about it. There were six hundred thousand men over twenty years old. Suppose there was a young man who had just turned twenty when they were redeemed. By the time he reached sixty, he would necessarily die in the wilderness.

There were also older people who would die in the wilderness, perhaps people in their sixties or seventies. But for those who were around twenty years old, their lifespan absolutely could not go beyond sixty, because this was determined by God.

So this also lets us see that the length of a person’s life is in God’s hands. It is not that you can live as long as you want. It is not that these people could exercise and then avoid dying in the wilderness. No. Every single person had to die, because this was God’s judgment upon them. God was against them.

So before God, we truly need to be greatly watchful. Do not think that God simply does not deal with these things. God will deal with the grumbling that He hears. After ten times, they still tested Him. “These ten times they have not obeyed My voice.” Therefore God begins to discipline them severely, just as He punished the Egyptians through the ten plagues.

Then verse 36 begins speaking about those rebellious men who caused the whole congregation to grumble. Verse 37 says that those men who brought the bad report died by a plague before the LORD.

These people feared death, did they not? They feared death, so they brought back an evil report. But now what happened? They immediately died before the LORD.

The word “plague” used here is the same kind of plague used for the final plague in Egypt. It is the plague God used to punish Egypt. It is also the plague God sent after Israel worshiped the golden calf.

We know that when Israel came out of Egypt, God struck Egypt through a plague—the final plague, the death of the firstborn. And here again these men die by plague. So plague is often one of God’s means of punishing evil men.

These people feared death, right? They did not want to enter Canaan. But in the end, they died beforehand, right before the LORD. Only two men remained alive: Joshua and Caleb.

So here these warnings are placed before us to remind us that we must firmly trust in Jehovah. We truly must firmly trust in Jehovah, because God does have wrath. When we go against His will and do not obey His word, disasters really can come upon us.

For the Israelites, this time they were so stubborn and rebellious that the result was forty years of wandering in the wilderness because of their unbelief. And all of those young and middle-aged men were to fall dead in the wilderness. This was the curse placed upon them.

Then there were their children. They thought their children would become prey. They thought their children were the weakest. Yet God is able to make the weak strong.

So I think here we are truly made to see that we view God’s power far too lightly. I do not know whether, in the daily lives of brothers and sisters, it often feels as though God cannot be seen or touched. Therefore, regarding God’s power and God’s glory, it becomes difficult for us to believe. The things we can see—our work, our income, these visible things—seem much more powerful.

And where is God? Is God really useless? So I think saying too much about this is actually not very beneficial. What is truly needed is faith.

Here, they completely refused to believe that God could defeat the Canaanites. They simply did not believe. So God was going to do something: “You unbelieving people, I will let you die in the wilderness. As for the wives and children whom you say are weak, whom you say you have no ability to protect, I will bring them in.”

So in the end, who is the one bringing people into Canaan? “I am the one bringing you into Canaan.” It is not by your own strength. If you rely upon your own strength, you cannot win at all.

So throughout Israel’s experience from the Exodus onward, they failed to learn the lesson they should have learned. What lesson? To believe in Jehovah’s mighty power and to follow Jehovah. I think this is the worst part. They never learned how to rely upon God in order to overcome.

And this is especially similar to the life of Christians. We are always focused on the next thing. For example, we encounter difficulties. “Now I have this problem. My child’s schooling, my child’s health, my own job, my marriage,” and things like that. We are always focused on the next problem.

“How will this problem in front of me be solved? God, You must help me solve it.” It is almost as if, if the problem is not solved, we become angry. But what God continually trains us to do is to look back at the previous things—to think about how He has led us throughout the days that have passed.

And what is the purpose of God leading you through those things? It is to train your faith so that you can face the current trial.

I think this lesson is something we truly need to think about carefully. Have we really walked through our lives by relying on ourselves? Or have we walked through them under the preservation of God’s grace?

If we do not have this awareness, then we will become entangled by the troubles and difficulties before our eyes. We will not know God’s will. We will not be willing to listen to God’s voice. In the end, we sink deeper and deeper into the circumstances.

I think this is truly one of the great tragedies for Christians. It is one of our terrible weaknesses. We only care about what is immediately before us.

But we have not learned, through this entire journey, to stop and think about the process by which God called us, and how great His grace has been in our lives. If you look back, which thing was not preserved by God? Which one of our prayers has God not answered? Which one of our difficulties has God not resolved? Every person is like this. We all carry immense grace upon us.

But our foolishness is this: we actually cannot see God’s leading in our lives. We are unwilling to listen to God’s voice. Then finally, when some disaster comes, God’s anger is aroused. After ten times, because you fundamentally do not believe, what happens? Earlier, God preserved you, and you received grace. But now, because you do not believe God, in the end you reject Him.

Of course, from the perspective of predestination, we would say that such a person was originally to be rejected. Yet even so, God still gave ten opportunities of grace.

So I think a true child of God is someone who continually receives God’s grace by looking back upon the way God has led him. If those Israelites had even a little understanding, then from the very beginning of the Exodus until now—as we ourselves have been studying through Exodus until today—how could they possibly conclude that God has no power?

Were the ten plagues upon Egypt fake? If God had no power, how could they possibly have come out of Egypt? That would have been impossible. And if God had no power, how could the Egyptian army have drowned in the Red Sea? How could the Red Sea have parted?

When they fought against Amalek and won, when they had no water and no food in the wilderness, how did they survive? And now they continue forward and arrive at the border again. Throughout this entire journey, it has been clearly the grace of God. It has been God’s preservation and mighty power.

Even the matter of the quail was God’s mercy. So how could they still not understand God’s will? Therefore I think this is spiritual blindness.

These ten spies—what is our problem? We do not know how to look at our history. We do not know how to reflect upon our past. We act as though once something is in the past, then it is gone. We even treat “looking ahead” as though it were a sign that a person is positive, or full of faith.

But that is not true at all. On the contrary, throughout the Scriptures God continually causes us to review Israel’s history. He commands us to think about our past lives. Why? So that when we face the next challenge, we may have faith and courage.

You must return to the experiences God has already given you. You must return to God’s salvation. Return to God’s mercy. Only then can you courageously face what comes next.

But our problem is that we are always asking God, “What should I do about this problem? I have encountered another hardship.” Yet we completely forget how many of our prayers God has answered, and how many difficulties He has already solved for us.

So what should we do now? Give thanks. Offer praise. Pray. We must thank God for what we have already received.

Why is thanksgiving so important? Why is gratitude for God’s past leading so important? Because thanksgiving confirms that it was God who was leading you throughout those experiences. That is the purpose of thanksgiving.

But we are like ignorant beasts. We only focus on the immediate problems before our eyes. Things have already become terrible. We are becoming more and more trapped. Yet we still refuse to look to God’s word and refuse to follow His word.

The difficulty has already become severe. God’s discipline has already become evident. God is already opening another path for us, but we refuse to go. Instead, we remain there saying, “Ah, this place is good. There is income here. There is money here. Let me stay a little longer. Maybe I can squeeze out a little more space and survive a bit longer.”

Yet we will not say, “Actually, God has placed me in this situation because He wants me to walk another path.” We simply refuse to walk it. We are this foolish.

Why? Because moving forward appears even harder. If I stay here and continue to expand my own territory, continue squeezing things out, perhaps I can still survive. But if I follow God, then I will completely lose my food to eat, right? The moment I obey God, maybe I lose my job. Right?

“At least here, although this boss mistreats me and turns me into a slave, I can still keep eating.” All of these things reveal that we fundamentally do not believe.

Therefore those without faith truly have no connection with the word. Hebrews says that they did not unite the word they heard with faith. In the Greek original, the idea is that they did not enter into the community of faith. They did not enter into the congregation that truly hears the word with faith.

And I think this really is true. There is no way around it. You must have faith. Looking at it from the outside, yes, it is difficult. The Canaanites are tall. Their cities are fortified. But you must remember the past. You must remember how God has led you, and what God’s will is now.

God says, “Go attack.” Fine. Then go fight. That is the normal attitude. But usually we are not like that. We completely forget all our past experiences. “Did anyone really help me before? Maybe not.” Then all we think about is, “What do I do about the current problem?”

This is simply what we are as human beings. We are foolish. But even Christians are this foolish. This is truly sorrowful.

The difficulty in front of us has already become so great. God is using it to call you to turn back to Him. He wants you to come out from it quickly and stop following the world. Listen to His word. If it is time to go home, then go home. If it is time to stop, then stop. Obey God’s word. These things are already clearly before us, yet we still do not believe.

So what happened to those unbelieving spies? Those elite warriors, those special soldiers—they were afraid of death, right? Very well, then God struck them down first.

Who is the One who truly rules over life? Who is the One who rules over everything in this world? We so often cannot figure this out, or perhaps we simply do not believe it.

We say with our mouths that God is great, but the moment we lower our heads, all we see is the world again. Why can we not lift up our heads and look toward heaven? This truly is our weakness and our sorrow.

Here God is righteous. His punishment and discipline upon Israel are righteous. Those forty years were indeed for them to fall in the wilderness. They truly had to bear the punishment for their spiritual harlotry, because they fundamentally did not believe. They did not know who rules over life. They did not know who fights the battle.

So when we read the Pentateuch, and when we read the history of Israel, including later the history of the kings, it is still the same issue: the issue of faith. Do you believe that God reigns? Do you believe that God is mighty? That is the key point.

You may say, “But if I believe, the result could be death.” Yes. In the Old Testament it often appears that obedience leads to victory. But in real life, you may truly die. Yet what does it matter if you die? Has not Jesus already conquered death? Do we not confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead? Is this not what we believe?

May God have mercy. Honestly, I can only say this much. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Thank you, everyone. Our sharing ends here for today.