Numbers 14:31 (ASV)

Passage

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.

Nearby Context

Numbers 14:29 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,

Numbers 14:30 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.

Numbers 14:31 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.

Numbers 14:32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

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.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "little", "ones", "said", "should", "prey", "bring", "shall", and "land". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "little" and "ones", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 30's "surely ye shall not come into the..." into verse 32's "But as for you your dead bodies...", so "little" and "ones" belong inside that flow. In Numbers context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "little" and "ones" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.