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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Numbers 14:39 - 14:45
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The Disobedience of the People Punished
v. 39. And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel, he announced to them in what manner the Lord intended to punish them; and the people mourned greatly. Although they were now standing on the threshold of Canaan, they were denied entrance into the Land of Promise, and all by their own fault. But the measure of their trespass was not yet full, for their repentance now turned them to presumption, since it was not connected with true humility.
v. 40. And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, with the object of forcing their way through the pass to the opposite side of the mountain range and beginning the conquest of Canaan on their own responsibility; it was a reaction from the extremities of despair which plunged the people into foolhardiness, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised; for we have sinned. That simple statement was to undo the happenings of the past two days.
v. 41. And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord? But it shall not prosper. He predicted certain defeat to the self-willed people, who presumed to set aside the word of the Lord. True repentance bows in humility under the will of the Lord, no matter in what manner He chooses to make it known.
v. 42. Go not up, for the Lord is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies.
v. 43. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, their armies having probably been mobilized to resist the threatened invasion, and ye shall fall by the sword; because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you. Two days before, in unbelief, they had refused to take up arms against the inhabitants of Canaan, and now again, in unbelief, because they refused to accept the word of Moses concerning the seriousness of God's judgment, they intend to undertake the conquest; to the old sin of unbelieving despair came the new sin of presumptuous self-confidence.
v. 44. But they presumed to go up unto the hilltop; nevertheless the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and Moses departed not out of the camp.
v. 45. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, eager to meet the invaders, and smote them and discomfited them, even unto Hormah. Having put them to flight, they pursued them with relentless fury, Deu_1:44, attacking the individual bands again and again, until parts of the Israelitish army were scattered far into the land of the Edomites. The behavior of the Israelites is a picture of the despair and the deceit of man's natural heart, which insists upon going its own ways. But God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace unto the humble. This is true both in spiritual and in temporal matters.