A year and a half after leaving Egypt, the children of Israel were camped just south of the Promised Land, but most had not yet developed sufficient trust in God to proceed.
At this point God proposed the possibility of starting over with a nation descended from Moses (Num 14:12). God had previously made such a proposal after the Golden Calf incident (Ex 32:10). Since Israel had been called to follow God in the land of Canaan, failing to follow God and failing to enter Canaan were, in effect, rejections of their calling. God's proposals to start over in these cases highlight the serious nature of the sins in Exodus 32 and Numbers 14.
These proposals were also a test of Moses' frame of mind. In both cases Moses argued against the proposals, interceding for the Israelites by appealing to God's character and reputation (Num 14:13-19).
God approved Moses' request and then pronounced judgment. Israel's time in the wilderness would now last for 40 years, and none of the adult males counted in the census of Num 1 (which included all tribes except Levi) would enter the Promised Land, except for Joshua and Caleb. The ten leaders who had brought back a negative report from Canaan were put to death immediately.
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