Numbers 32 · a question people ask
What does "be sure your sin will find you out" mean?
In Hebrew the words are, literally, "know your sin which will find you" (32:23). The sin is named in the verse before it: not going over armed "before the LORD" (32:20-23), which Moses calls sinning "against the LORD" (32:23). Everyone agrees on that. Readers differ on what "find you" means here, and the two main readings below each rest on verses.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
What the sin brings will reach you
Those who hold this view read "your sin" as the sin together with what it brings, and point to what Moses has just said it would bring: "he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all these people" (32:15). They compare the words to the spies' generation: "you will bear your iniquities, even forty years" (14:34). They note that the same verb is used where trouble overtakes people: "many evils and troubles shall come on them" (Deuteronomy 31:17). On this reading the sin, and what it brings, will overtake them.
Numbers 32:15 · Numbers 14:34 · Deuteronomy 31:17
The sin will come to light
Those who hold this view read "find you out" as being found out: the sin will not stay hidden. They point to the same Hebrew verb in Judah's words, "God has found out the iniquity of your servants" (Genesis 44:16). On this reading, the sin would not stay hidden from the LORD.
Genesis 44:16
The verses
“Moses said to them: “If you will do this thing, if you will arm yourselves to go before the LORD to the war, and every one of your armed men will pass over the Jordan before the LORD until he has driven out his enemies from before him, and the land is subdued before the LORD; then afterward you shall return, and be clear of obligation to the LORD and to Israel. Then this land shall be your possession before the LORD. “But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD; and be sure your sin will find you out.”