14:20-35 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 shut out of it. The promise of God should be fulfilled to their children. They wished to die in the wilderness; God made their sin their ruin, took them at their word, and their carcases fell in the wilderness. They were made to groan under the burden of their own 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 of it, that 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 put a difference between the guilty and the innocent, and cut them off without touching their children. Thus God would not utterly take away his loving kindness.

Verse 22. - Because all those men. The particle כִּי is not to be rendered "because;" it simply introduces the substance of the oath: "As I live... all those men... shall not see." So the Septuagint. And have tempted me now these ten times. It is not in the least necessary to press this expression, borrowed from the vague usage of men, literally. It is the language of indignation, meaning that the full measure of provocation had been received (cf. Genesis 31:7; Job 19:3). The recorded instances of national "temptations" cannot be made to reach the number ten.

Because all those men which have seen my glory,.... His glorious Majesty, or the emblem of it in the cloud, on the tabernacle, which had often appeared to them, and the glorious things done by him; the glory of his power, wisdom, goodness, faithfulness, and truth, displayed in bringing them out of Egypt, through the Red sea, and thus far in the wilderness, even to the borders of the land of Canaan; it should be rendered, not "because", but "that", for this is the thing sworn to, or the matter of the oath:

and my miracles which I did in Egypt; by the hand of Moses, both before them, when he was sent to them, as a proof of his divine mission, and before Pharaoh and all his court, Exodus 7:10, inflicting plagues upon him and his people, Exodus 7:20,

and in the wilderness; in raining manna from heaven about their tents, Exodus 16:14; sending them quails, Exodus 16:13; and giving them water out of the rock, Exodus 17:6,

and have tempted me now these ten times; which the Jews understand precisely and exactly of such a number, and which they reckon thus (w); twice at the sea, Exodus 14:11; twice concerning water, Exodus 15:23; twice about manna, Exodus 16:2; twice about quails, Exodus 16:12; once by the calf, Exodus 32:1; and once in the wilderness of Paran, Numbers 14:1, which last and tenth was the present temptation: these are reckoned a little otherwise elsewhere (x); but perhaps it may be better, with Aben Ezra, to interpret it of many times, a certain number being put for an uncertain, they having frequently tempted the Lord:

and have not hearkened to my voice; neither to his word of promise, nor to his word of command, and particularly his late order to go up and possess the land, Deuteronomy 1:21.

(w) T. Bab. Eracin, fol. 15. 1. Bartenora in Pirke Abot, c. 5. sect. 4. Jarchi in loc. (x) Maimon. in Pirke Abot, c. 5. sect. 4.

22. ten times—very frequently.

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