Numbers 14:34 (DRB)

Passage

According to the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be counted for a day. And forty years you shall receive your iniquities, and shall know my revenge:

Nearby Context

Numbers 14:32 Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness.

Numbers 14:33 Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert,

Numbers 14:34 According to the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be counted for a day. And forty years you shall receive your iniquities, and shall know my revenge:

Numbers 14:35 For as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude, that hath risen up together against me: in this wilderness shall it faint away and die.

Numbers 14:36 Therefore all the men, whom Moses had sent to view the land, and who at their return had made the whole multitude to murmur against him, speaking ill of the land that it was naught,

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "iniquities", "number", "forty", "days", "wherein", "viewed", "land", and "year". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "iniquities" and "number", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 33's "Your children shall wander in the desert..." into verse 35's "For as I have spoken so will...", so "iniquities" and "number" 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 "iniquities" and "number" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.