Numbers 14:26

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, that murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As I live, saith Jehovah, surely, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, that have murmured against me, surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware that I would make you dwell therein, save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones that ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 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. After the number of the days in which ye spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my alienation. I Jehovah have spoken, surely this will I do unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness shall they be consumed, and there shall they die."

These verses record the announcement of the verdict against the people which was already known to Moses from his intercessory conversation with the Lord.

"That have murmured against me ..." (Numbers 14:29). This is apparently a qualifier of the general proscription of the "whole number" that were numbered in the opening chapters of Numbers, with the meaning that any who did not murmur against God would have been exempted. The Levites, of course, were not numbered; and therefore, it appears that "the whole order of the priesthood was spared."[25]

"Sware ..." (Numbers 14:30) here, and as used elsewhere in these chapters is literally, "lift up the hand, a common gesture of oath taking in many lands."[26]

"Whoredoms ... (Numbers 14:33)." This word is used generally throughout the O.T. for unfaithfulness to God. It derived from the widespread pagan worship which did indeed practice literal fornication and adultery in a most extensive manner.