And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

NUMBERS 14:33KJV
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Numbers 14:33 (KJV)

What does Numbers 14:33 mean?

Numbers 14:33 says that the children of the Israelites would have to wander in the wilderness for forty years and suffer the consequences of their parents’ unfaithfulness, until the older generation died off in the wilderness. This was a direct result of the people’s refusal to trust God and enter the promised land.

In this verse, God is speaking to Moses and telling him what will happen to the Israelites after they refused to enter Canaan because they were afraid. The word “whoredoms” in the King James Version refers to the people’s unfaithfulness to God, not literal sexual sin, but turning away from God. The children would “bear” or carry the consequences of their parents’ actions, living as nomads in the desert until the previous generation had died.

The Hebrew behind Numbers 14:33

  • “wander” (רָעָה, ra‘ah): This word often means to shepherd or lead animals, but here it describes the children moving aimlessly through the wilderness, highlighting a sense of being unsettled and without a home.
  • “whoredoms” (תַּזְנוּתֵיכֶם, taznuteikhem): This word is used for unfaithfulness, especially in a spiritual sense—turning away from God to follow other ways or idols. It emphasizes that the people’s main failure was not trusting or staying loyal to God.
  • “bear” (נָשָׂא, nasa’): This word means to carry or endure. The children would have to endure the consequences of their parents’ unfaithfulness, not that they were guilty themselves, but they would experience the results.
  • “carcases” (פֶּגֶר, peger): This word is a blunt term for dead bodies, stressing the finality of the older generation’s fate in the wilderness.

Why Numbers 14:33 matters

  • Numbers 14:33 clarifies that the children were not being punished for their own actions, but they still suffered because of their parents’ choices, showing how one generation’s decisions can deeply affect the next.
  • The verse highlights the seriousness with which God viewed Israel’s lack of trust, connecting the wandering directly to their spiritual unfaithfulness.
  • This verse sets up the forty years of wandering as a key turning point in Israel’s story, explaining why the journey to the promised land took so long and why only a new generation would enter.

Where else these words appear

“whoredoms” Hebrew H2184 · used in 9 verses

  • Jeremiah 3:2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
  • Jeremiah 13:27 I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?
  • Ezekiel 43:9 Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever.

“carcases” Hebrew H6297 · used in 21 verses

  • Genesis 15:11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.
  • 2 Chronicles 20:24 And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.
  • Jeremiah 33:5 They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city.

“wasted” Hebrew H8552 · used in 62 verses

  • Genesis 47:15 And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth.
  • Joshua 8:24 And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.
  • Isaiah 16:4 Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler: for the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the oppressors are consumed out of the land.

“forty” Hebrew H705 · used in 124 verses

  • Genesis 5:13 And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:
  • Deuteronomy 8:4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
  • 1 Chronicles 12:36 And of Asher, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, forty thousand.