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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Numbers 14:25 - 14:25
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
In the valley; beyond the mountain at the foot whereof they now were, Num_14:40. And this clause is added, either,
1. As an aggravation of Israel’s misery and punishment, that being now ready to enter and take possession of the land, they are forced to go back into the wilderness; or,
2. As an argument to oblige them more willingly to obey the following command of returning into the wilderness, because their enemies were very near them, and severed from them only by that Idumean mountain, and if they did not speedily depart, their enemies would hear of them and fall upon them, and so the evil which before they causelessly feared would come upon them; they, their wives, and their children would become a prey to the Amalekites and Canaanites, because God had forsaken them, and would not assist nor defend them. The verse may be rendered thus,
And, or But, for the present,
the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley; therefore (which particle is here understood, as it is in other places)
to-morrow turn ye, & c. Though some knit these words to the former, and read the place thus, Caleb—and his seed shall possess it, to wit, the land near Hebron, and also the land of the Amalekites and of the Canaanites that dwell in the valley.
Quest. But how are the Canaanites said to dwell in the valley here, when they dwelt in the hill, Num_14:45, and by the sea-coasts, Num_21:1?
Answ. 1. Part of them dwelt in one place, and part in other places.
2. The word Canaanite may here be understood more generally of all the inhabitants of Canaan.
By the way of the Red Sea, i.e. that leadeth to the Red Sea, and to Egypt, the place whither you desire to return, Num_14:3,4.