Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Todd,
     Thank you for correcting a false conclusion, that when sin is
forgiven, no punishment is due. This is not what I had in mind. My thought
was that Num 14:18 expressed God's characteristic treatment of the godly
and the wicked. That He was characteristically kind to those who loved Him
would not mean that He could not punish them. That he was
characteristically punishing of those who hate Him would not mean that He
could not forgive them. I would not say that God could not punish the
righteous, since I know Hebrews 12:5 and see how God disciplined David
after the sin with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite.
     I interpreted Num 14:18 in terms of Exod 20:5. Exod 20:5 specifies
punishment for those who hate God, using the same wording as Num 14:18. It
speaks of kindness for those who love God and keep His commandments. Moses'
words in Num 14:18 are based on God's words to him in Exod 34:6-7. There it
is clearer that the words about kindness also utilize the wording from Exod
20:5.
      Exod 20:5 speaks of two groups, those who hate God and those who love
Him. There is a contrast between the third and fourth generation of the
former on one hand, and the thousandth generation of the latter on the
other. See Deut 7:9, where L:)ELEP DWOR ("to a thousand of generation") is
equivalent to the phrase in Exod 20:5: LA):ALFPIYM ("to thousands"). Yet my
bifurcation of people into these two groups may oversimplify the issue in
Num 14:18. For Exod 34:7 shows God forgiving wickedness; it also continues
by saying that He punishes wickedness.
     The reality may be that in Exod 34:6-7, and thus Num 14:18, God
mentions His punishment of the sin of those who hate Him to the sons of the
fourth generation as an extreme example of the reality of His punishment.
To return to Exod 20:5-6, verse 5 would express the severity of God's
punishment to the wicked, and verse 6 the greatness of His kindness to the
obedient. These would be two poles of treatment.
     In Num 14:18 Moses is praying for the forgiveness of the people (the
ten spies incident). He already has seen God forgive them while still
punishing (the golden calf incident). God hears Moses' prayer and forgives
the people (v. 20); yet He punishes them by not permitting them to enter
the promised land (v. 23).
     I apologize for some inadequacy in my first posting.

                                                Yours truly,
                                                Harold Holmyard

P.S. For more detail on the contrast between the 3th and 4th versus the
1000th in Exod 20:5, see C. F. Keil, The Pentateuch, 2:116-17, in Keil and
Delitzsch, A Commentary on the Old Testament.

P.P.S. Some have wondered whether in Num 14:18 the sons suffer solely due
to the sins of the fathers. Numbers 14:18 depends upon Exod 20:5, and Keil
notes in Exod 20:5 the position of "regarding those who hate me" at the end
of the sentence. This placement of the phrase shows that it "cannot refer
to the fathers alone, but to the fathers and the children to the third and
fourth generation." If it referred to the fathers alone, he says, it would
necessarily stand in the middle of the verse directly after "fathers." "God
punishes the sin of the fathers in the children to the third and fourth
generation in relation to those who hate Him."