Thirty-Eight Years

Deuteronomy 2:8-18 – So we went on past our relatives the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab. Then the Lord said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.” (The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites. Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their possession.) And the Lord said, “Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.” So we crossed the valley. Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. The Lord’s hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp. Now when the last of these fighting men among the people had died, the Lord said to me, “Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar.

Numbers 14:34 – For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’

Deuteronomy 1:3 – In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them.

Application:

• ·         The 40 days of the travels of the spies became the numerical pattern for their suffering: one year for one day—for 40 years they would be reminded of their misjudgment, and for 40 years the people 20 years old or more would be dying, so that only the young generation might enter the land.
• ·         The Lord had condemned the Israelites to 40 years of wandering in Sinai as punishment for not entering Canaan as He had commanded them to do at Kadesh. The 40 years included the time spent at Sinai and on the journey to Kadesh, as well as the next 38 years.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV