Numbers 14:21-29

In their comments about this verse, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown cite Numbers 14:21-29. That is the scripture about the spies’ rebellion, the peoples’ refusal to enter the land, and God’s judgment that He would not grant entry to those over the age of 20. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, and a number of other commentators, including E. W. Bullinger, find correspondence, that is, parallels, between the way Christ will deal with regathered Israel at His return and the way He dealt with the children of Israel after the Exodus.

In that historical event, God led the people out of Egypt, a land of captivity, with signs and wonders, with “an outstretched arm,” that last term appearing about eight times in the Old Testament in reference to God’s work in the period of the Exodus. But, for all that display of power on their behalf, the people obstinately remained rebellious. God did not permit the rebels among them to enter the Land of Promise. Of the two million or so people who walked out of Egypt, only Joshua and Celeb entered the Promised Land, because, as Numbers 32:12 puts it, only they “wholly followed the Lord.”