Contradictions and Paradoxes in Numbers 26:64

Check out Contradictions Catalog of Numbers 26:64 for the comprehensive list of verses that contradicts Numbers 26:64. Some key contradictions and paradoxes are described below.

According to Moses, when they counted the people of Israel in the desert, none of the older people who left Egypt with Moses and Aaron were still there. It shows that God was watching over them and keeping His promises as only the new generation was left.

Numbers 26:64: But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.

Contradiction with Numbers 1:2-3

Numbers 1 talks about Moses and Aaron numbering the people at Sinai, which seems to include the able-bodied men who would later die in the wilderness, contradicting the notion in Numbers 26:64 that none were remaining.

Numbers 1:2-3: Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of [their] names, every male by their polls;

Contradiction with Numbers 14:29

The verse states that all men over twenty years of age would die in the wilderness, which contradicts the survival of certain individuals such as Caleb and Joshua noted in Numbers 26.

Numbers 14:29: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,

Contradiction with Joshua 14:6-10

Caleb, a survivor from the original census, claims he was forty years old at the time of the first census and is now alive, contradicting the notion that there were no survivors from the original census in the wilderness.

Joshua 14:6-10: Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea.

Contradiction with Deuteronomy 2:14-15

This passage confirms that all the men of war perished, except certain individuals like Caleb and Joshua, contradicting the generalization in Numbers 26:64 about no one being left.

Deuteronomy 2:14-15: And the space in which we came from Kadeshbarnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, [was] thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the LORD sware unto them. [brook: or, valley]

Paradox #1

The contradiction here is that earlier in the Book of Numbers, during a census in Numbers 1, the individuals who left Egypt were counted. By Numbers 26:64, it states that none of those individuals were left, except for Caleb and Joshua, due to the 40 years of wandering and the consequences for their disobedience. This might seem inconsistent because it suggests a complete turnover of a massive population within a short span, which could be seen as unlikely.

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