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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Chewed, Heb. cut off, to wit, from their mouths, which is here understood, and expressed Joe_1:5, i.e. ere it was taken away, as the flocks are said to be cut off from the fold, Hab_3:17, when they are lost and perished. The sense is, before they had done eating their quails, which lasted for a month, as appears from Num_11:20.
A very great plague; whether it was leanness sent into them, Psa_106:15, whereby the food was deprived of its nourishing power, which it hath only from God’s blessing; or surfeit, a punishment most suitable to their sin, and most likely to follow their intemperate desire and use of this food; or the pestilence; it is not much material: but a great and sore plague unquestionably it was.
Quest. Why did God so sorely punish the people’s murmuring and complaining for lack of flesh here, when he spared them after the same sin, Exo 16?
Answ. Because this sin was a far greater sin than that, and aggravated with worse circumstances; as proceeding not from necessity, as that did, when as yet they had no food, but from mere lust and wantonness, when they had manna constantly given them; as committed after large experience of God’s care and kindness, after God had pardoned their former sins, and after God had in a solemn and terrible manner made known his laws and duty to them.