| Geneva Study Bible Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: King James Translators' Notes Surely...: Heb. If they see the land Scofield Reference Notes [1] Surely Kadesh-barnea is, by the unbelief of Israel there, and the divine comment on that unbelief Num 14:22-38 Dt 1:19-40 1Cor 10:1-5 Heb 3:12-19 invested with immense spiritual significance. The people had faith to sprinkle the blood of atonement Ex 12:28 and to come out of Egypt (the world), but had not faith to enter their Canaan rest. Therefore, though redeemed, they were a forty years' grief to Jehovah. The spiritual application is made in Heb. 6.3-11: See Scofield Note: "Heb 6:4". Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 14:20-35 The Lord granted the prayer of Moses so far as not at once to destroy the congregation. But disbelief of the promise forbids the benefit. Those who despise the pleasant land shall be shut out of it. The promise of God should be fulfilled to their children. They wished to die in the wilderness; God made their sin their ruin, took them at their word, and their carcases fell in the wilderness. They were made to groan under the burden of their own sin, which was too heavy for them to bear. Ye shall know my breach of promise, both the causes of it, that it is procured by your sin, for God never leaves any till they first leave him; and the consequences of it, that will produce your ruin. But your little ones, now under twenty years old, which ye, in your unbelief, said should be a prey, them will I bring in. God will let them know that he can put a difference between the guilty and the innocent, and cut them off without touching their children. Thus God would not utterly take away his loving kindness. | 
