Bible Strands
Joshua 5:6
For the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness forty years, until all the nation’s men of war who had come out of Egypt had died, since they did not obey the LORD. So the LORD vowed never to let them see the land He had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Joshua addresses the second generation of Israelites at Gilgal immediately following the circumcision of the men born during the wilderness journey. He provides the historical and theological explanation for why the exodus generation failed to enter the Promised Land.
The words — The phrase אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה ('ar.ba.'Im sha.Nah) translates literally to "forty years," anchoring the period of wandering. The verb הָלְכ֣וּ (ha.le.Khu) means "they had walked," emphasizing the prolonged, unceasing nature of their desert movement.
The thread — The text echoes Numbers 14:23, where God declares that none of the despisers will see the promised land. Deuteronomy 2:14 records the same thirty-eight-year span from Kadesh-barnea to the Zered Valley, while Hebrews 3:11 applies the oath to spiritual rest.
Why it lands — The verse requires readers to acknowledge that disobedience carries concrete, generational consequences. It demands a clear-eyed assessment of how divine promises operate within the boundaries of human faithlessness.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: unto whom the Lord sware that he would not shew them the land, which the Lord sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
Cross-references
- Numbers 14:23 not one will ever see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will see it.
- Deuteronomy 2:14 The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years, until that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.
- Hebrews 3:11 So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’”
- 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.
- Exodus 3:8 I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
- Numbers 14:29 Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.
- Deuteronomy 2:7 Indeed, the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.
- Psalms 95:10 For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”
- Deuteronomy 8:4 Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.
- Jeremiah 2:2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.