The people weep and murmur; Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes

• Numbers 14:1–10 tells that all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night, and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron; 14:4 says, “They said to one another, ‘Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.’”
  Source evidence (1)

  AI-assisted comparison with the cited narrative; not independent historical verification.

  • NUM 14:1–10, engwebp

    ¹All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.

    ²All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!

    ³Why does the LORD bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into Egypt?”

    ⁴They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”

    ⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

    ⁶Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes.

    ⁷They spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.

    ⁸If the LORD delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us: a land which flows with milk and honey.

    ⁹Only don’t rebel against the LORD, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and the LORD is with us. Don’t fear them.”

    ¹⁰But all the congregation threatened to stone them with stones. The LORD’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the children of Israel.

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• Nehemiah 9:16–21 has, in the words the Levites begin at 9:5, “but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage” (9:17).
  Source evidence (1)

  AI-assisted comparison with the cited narrative; not independent historical verification.

  • NEH 9:16–21, engwebp

    ¹⁶“But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn’t listen to your commandments,

    ¹⁷and refused to obey. They weren’t mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them.

    ¹⁸Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies,

    ¹⁹yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go.

    ²⁰You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

    ²¹“Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell.

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Numbers 14:4 says, “They said to one another, ‘Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.’” Nehemiah 9:17, in the words the Levites begin at 9:5, reads, “but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage” (the Korean Revised Version: 목을 굳게하며 패역하여 스스로 한 두목을 세우고 종 되었던 땅으로 돌아가고자 하였사오나). Numbers 14:4 tells of words said to one another; Nehemiah 9:17 says that a captain was appointed. Neither passage names the leader or the captain, and the text does not say how the two passages stand together. This collection records both as they stand, and decides nothing.