Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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meat (Ps 74:14), and the Canaanites will be so too. They show that, whatever was suggested to the contrary, the advantage was clear on Israel's side. For,
[1.] Though the Canaanites dwell in walled cities, they are naked: Their defence has departed from them; that common providence which preserves the rights of nations has abandoned them, and will be no shelter nor protection to them. The other spies took notice of their strength, but these of their wickedness, and thence inferred that God had forsaken them, and therefore their defence had departed. No people can be safe when they have provoked God to leave them.
[2.] Though Israel dwell in tents they are fortified: The Lord is with us, and his name is a strong tower; fear them not. Note, While we have the presence of God with us, we need not fear the most powerful force against us.
(3.) They showed them plainly that all the danger they were in was from their own discontents, and that they would succeed against all their enemies if they did not make God their enemy. On this point alone the cause would turn (Nu 14:8): "If the Lord delight in us, as certainly he does, and will if we do not provoke him, he will bring us into this good land; we shall without fail get it in possession by his favour, and the light of his countenance (Ps 44:3), if we do not forfeit his favour and by our own follies turn away our own mercies." It has come to this issue (Nu 14:9): Only rebel not you against the Lord. Note, Nothing can ruin sinners but their own rebellion. If God leave them, it is because they drive him from them; and they die because they will die. None are excluded the heavenly Canaan but those that exclude themselves. And, now, could the case have been made more plain? Could it have been urged more closely? But what was the effect?
II. It was all to no purpose; they were deaf to this fair reasoning; nay, they were exasperated by it, and grew more