In Numbers, chapter fourteen, verse twenty, the Lord said to Moses I have pardoned according to thy word. The granting of pardon and forgiveness does not mean the end of punishment. The holiness and justice of the Lord required that punishment should overtake the transgressors, as known beforehand in Exodus thirty-two thirty-four. Nevertheless, the prayer of Moses on behalf of the people to the Lord allows them not to be wholly extinct. God had to deal with the murmurings several times up to this point.
The eight murmurings recorded begin at the Red Sea in Exodus fourteen, verses eleven and twelve. Then at Marah, chapter fifteen, verse twenty-three. Israelites again in the wilderness of Sin in Exodus sixteen verse two. At Rephidim chapter seventeen, verse one. Then they murmured at Horeb in chapter thirty-two. The Israelites did not stop and continued at Taberah in Numbers chapter eleven, verse one. Then at the graves of the lust of the same chapter, verse four. Then at Kadesh, in chapter fourteen. Then there were the transgressions of few individuals: in keeping the manna until the morning of the day after that on which it gathered in Exodus sixteen verse twenty, and in going out to gather the manna on the seventh day when none fell in verse twenty-seven of the same chapter.
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 locked out. The promises of God are complete to their children. They wished to die in the wilderness; God made their sin their ruin, took them at their word, and their carcasses fell in the wasteland. They were to groan under the burden of their 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 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 differentiate between the guilty and the innocent and cut them off without touching their children. Thus God would not utterly take away his loving kindness.