Commentary for Numbers 14:28

חי אני AS TRULY AS I LIVE — This is a formula of taking an oath: If I do not do so, then — if this were at all possible to say of God — I do not live.

IM LO’ (IF NOT) AS YE HAVE SPOKEN IN MINE EARS. The meaning thereof is as an expression of wonder: “Will I not do to you as ye have spoken?” Such is the way of the [Sacred] Language: [Thou art sent] not to many people of an unintelligible speech and of a slow tongue, whose words thou canst not understand. ‘Im lo’ (would they not) have hearkened unto thee if I sent thee to them?¹⁵⁷Ezekiel 3:5-6. Similarly, ‘im lo’ (if not) as I have thought did it come to pass?¹⁵⁸Isaiah 14:24.

חי אני נאם ה' אם לא וגו, whenever we find two successive negatives this is equivalent to a positive statement. [the word אם as well as the word לא are each understood as a negative. Ed.] כאשר דברתם באזני, a reference to verse 2 in which the people are reported as wishing that they had died already in Egypt and inverse 3 when they had prematurely bemoaned their wives and children as becoming part of the Canaanites booty in the war they anticipated losing. G’d also refers to what the spies themselves had said when they described the land of Canaan as “consuming its inhabitants” (13,32). G’d would see to it now that all these statements would become self-fulfilling prophecies.

אמר אליהם…כאשר דברתם, "say to them…as you have spoken, etc." Here G'd relates to the fears the Israelites had expressed, sentiments which G'd had heard and decided to address. As a result, He limited the ages of the people who would die in the desert to those who were over the age of twenty. G'd never allowed the spies themselves to be informed of the decree He was about to hand down as they died a miserable death within the sight of all the Israelites.

אם לא כאשר דברתם באזני כן אעשה לכם, “if I shall not do to you as you have spoken in My hearing.” The wording is to be understood as a rhetorical question. “You will see if what you have accused Me of will not turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy?”

If it were possible to say, I do not live. As if the Torah had said “If I do not do to you as you have spoken, that your corpses shall fall … then I do not live.” However the Torah did not write “I do not live” because the Glory of Hashem is hidden. Thus it relied upon this being understood by first having said “as I live.” For if not so, it should have said “‘As I live,’ says Hashem, ‘as you have spoken in My ears, so shall I do to you.’”

V. 28. אמר עליהם, zu beiden, zu der redeführenden Volksgemeinde (V. 2) und ihren Aufhetzern. — נאם ד׳: siehe Bereschit 5, 29. — כאשר דברתם (V. 2).

כאשר דברתם AS YE HAVE SPOKEN … [YOUR CARCASSES WILL FALL IN THE WILDERNESS] — because you made the request of Me: “Would that we had died in this wilderness” (Numbers 14:2).

כן אעשה לכם; not all at once but at intervals. This is what prompted the psalmist in Psalms 106,26 to say: “So He raised His hand in oath to make them fall the wilderness; to disperse their offspring among the nations and scatter them throughout the land.” Also the prophet Ezekiel sees in the present decree something that had repercussions throughout the ages when he said (Ezekiel 20,23) “also I raised My hand in an oath already in the desert, saying I will scatter them among the nations.” [our author sees in the punishment meted out at this time a parallel to that meted out at the time of the sin of the golden calf where G’d had reserved the right to spread the retribution throughout history in order not to have to wipe out the people then and there as they had deserved. Ed.]