Or HaChaim on Numbers 14:37/אור החיים על במדבר י״ד:ל״ז

1 וימותו האנשים מוצאי דבת הארץ רעה, The men who had issued an evil report about the land died, etc. We have to understand this verse as follows: "The men who died were the ones who issued the evil report." We find a parallel construction in Psalms 9,17: בפועל כפיו נוקש רשע, "The wicked person is snared by his own deeds." The verse may also tell us why these people died by pestilence; this was an appropriate tit-for-tat because they had spread evil tales. The words davar, word, and dever, pestilence, are spelled identically.

2לפני השם, in the presence of G'd. The Torah means that they died before G'd's presence as represented by the cloud ascended again. The type of permission granted to the destructive forces in this instance differs from that given to the same forces when Aaron and Miriam had been guilty of slandering Moses. On that occasion the Tzoraat had not struck until after G'd departed. The fact that in this case G'd gave permission for the destructive forces to become active immediately indicates the seriousness of the sin of the spies.