Numbers 14:31

Summary

The verse contrasts the fate of the children of the generation that rejected the land with that of their parents: God announces that he will bring the little ones — whom the people had said would become plunder — into the land, and that they will come to know the land that the adults had rejected.

Key words

• taf ("little one[s]", H2945) — construct noun with the suffix khem ("your"), designating the small children of the rebellious generation as those who receive a different fate.
• yihyeh ("he will become", H1961) — qal imperfect, marking the feared outcome ("will become plunder") as unrealized future action from the people's earlier speech.
• hevei'ti ("I will bring", H0935) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative form makes explicit that it is God who causes the children to enter the land, continuing the narrative chain begun by the vav.
• yade'u ("they will know", H3045) — qal sequential perfect, chained to hevei'ti; expresses a future consequence of being brought in — direct experiential knowledge of the land.
• me'astem ("you have rejected", H3988A) — qal perfect, second person masculine plural, describing the completed act of rejection attributed to the parents' generation, contrasted with the children's future yade'u.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three verbs linked by the narrative vav (H9001): hevei'ti ("I will bring"), yade'u ("they will know"), all following the initial clause about the children (tapkhem) and what was previously said (amartem, "you said") about them becoming baz ("plunder", H0957). The relative clause asher amartem lavaz yihyeh recalls the people's own words, using yihyeh (qal imperfect) to represent their anticipated but unrealized fate. The sequence of perfects (hevei'ti, yade'u) after the initial vav functions as a continuous future action in Hebrew narrative syntax, so the bringing-in and the knowing are presented as connected consequences, not isolated events.

The final relative clause asher me'astem bah ("which you rejected in it") uses the qal perfect me'astem to mark the parents' rejection as a completed, prior act, set against the children's future yade'u ("they will know") of the same land — the same object (ha'aretz, "the land", H0776G) is referenced by both verbs, marking a contrast in verbal aspect between the older generation's finished rejection and the younger generation's coming knowledge.

Differences between versions

Where the Hebrew has yade'u ("they will know", H3045), the LXX renders κληρονομήσουσιν ("they will inherit"), a different verb altogether. The Vulgate gives "ut videant terram" ("so that they may see the land"), using "see" rather than "know." The BSB's "they will enjoy it" is likewise an interpretive rendering of yade'u, diverging from the Hebrew's literal sense of "knowing" the land.