Numbers 32:15

For if ye turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and ye shall destroy all this people.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Numbers 32:15. Ye shall destroy all this people — Who, being moved by your counsel and example, will refuse to go over Jordan and possess the land of Canaan. Thus all who rest satisfied with visible and temporal things, and evidently show by their conduct that they prefer earth to heaven, not only stop short themselves of the rest that remaineth for the people of God, but greatly discourage others in their journey thither, and lay stumbling-blocks in their way. Reader! Arise, depart, this is not thy rest, because it is polluted; it will destroy thee with a sore destruction.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:6-15 The proposal showed disregard to the land of Canaan, distrust of the Lord's promise, and unwillingness to encounter the difficulties and dangers of conquering and driving out the inhabitants of that land. Moses is wroth with them. It will becomes any of God's Israel to sit down unconcerned about the difficult and perilous concerns of their brethren, whether public or personal. He reminds them of the fatal consequences of the unbelief and faint-heartedness of their fathers, when they were, as themselves, just ready to enter Canaan. If men considered as they ought what would be the end of sin, they would be afraid of the beginning of it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Kenezite - Kenaz Genesis 36:11 was the name of one of the "dukes of Edom:" but Israel and Edom were of kindred origin, and the use of similar names by the two peoples is not surprising.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6-19. Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here—Their language was ambiguous; and Moses, suspicious that this proposal was an act of unbelief, a scheme of self-policy and indolence to escape the perils of warfare and live in ease and safety, addressed to them a reproachful and passionate remonstrance. Whether they had really meditated such a withdrawal from all share in the war of invasion, or the effect of their leader's expostulation was to drive them from their original purpose, they now, in answer to his impressive appeal, declared it to be their sincere intention to co-operate with their brethren; but, if so, they ought to have been more explicit at first.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Who being moved by your counsel and example, will refuse to go over Jordan, and to possess the land of Canaan.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For if ye turn away from after him,.... From following him in the way of his commandments, from attending his word, worship, and ordinances, and from walking after him, who went before them in a pillar of cloud and fire, as it is suggested they would, should they stop short here and not go over Jordan into the land of Canaan:

he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; as he did at the time of the affair of the spies, when they were ordered to turn and get into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea, and where they had been ever since unto this time, Numbers 14:25,

and ye shall destroy all this people; be the cause of their destruction, if the Lord should in such a manner resent this step of theirs, as to order them back into the wilderness again, though they were now as they were before, on the border of the land of Canaan.

Geneva Study Bible

For if ye turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and {d} ye shall destroy all this people.

(d) By your occasion.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - He will yet again leave them in the wilderness. Properly speaking, Israel had already emerged from the wilderness; but until they had fairly made good their possession of Canaan, their desert wanderings could not be considered at an end. Numbers 32:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"If ye draw back behind Him," i.e., resist the fulfilment of the will of God, to bring Israel to Canaan, "He will leave it (Israel) still longer in the desert, and ye prepare destruction for all this nation."