Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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them so or no) to be thoughts of good, and not of evil, Jer 29:11.
3 And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by
the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
How they came at last to this desperate resolve, that, instead of going forward to Canaan, they would go back again to Egypt. The motion is first made by way of query only (Nu 14:3): Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? But the ferment being high, and the spirits of the people being disposed to entertain any thing that was perverse, it soon ripened to a resolution, without a debate (Nu 14:4): Let us make a captain and return to Egypt; and it is lamented long after (Ne 9:17) that in their rebellion they appointed a captain to return to their bondage; for they knew Moses would not be their captain in this retreat. Now,
1. It was the greatest folly in the world to wish themselves in Egypt, or to think that if they were there it would be better with them than it was. If they durst not go forward to Canaan, yet better be as they were than go back to Egypt. What did they want? What had they to complain of? They had plenty, and peace, and rest, were under a good government, had good company, had the tokens of God's presence with them, and enough to make them easy even in the wilderness, if they had but hearts to be content. But whither were they thus eager to go to better themselves? To Egypt! Had they so soon forgotten the sore bondage they were in there? Would they be again under the tyranny of their taskmasters, and at the drudgery of making brick? And, after all the plagues which Egypt had suffered for their sakes, could they expect any better treatment there than they had formerly, and not rather much worse? In how little time (not a year and a half) have they forgotten all the sighs of their bondage, and all the songs of their deliverance! Like brute-beasts, they mind only what is present, and their memories, with the other powers of reason, are sacrificed to their passions. See Ps 106:7. We find it threatened (De 28:68), as the completing of their misery,