Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.)
Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.
The sin of this people which provoked God to proceed against them is here aggravated, Nu 14:22,27. It is not made worse than really it was, but is shown to be exceedingly sinful. It was an evil congregation, each bad, but altogether in congregation, very bad.
1. They tempted God--tempted his power, whether he could help them in their straits--his goodness, whether he would--and his faithfulness, whether his promise would be performed. They tempted his justice, whether he would resent their provocations and punish them or no. They dared him, and in effect challenged him, as God does the idols (Isa 41:23), to do good, or do evil.
2. They murmured against him. This is much insisted on, Nu 14:27. As they questioned what he would do, so they quarrelled with him for every thing he did or had done, continually fretting and finding fault. It does not appear that they murmured at any of the laws or ordinances that God gave them (though they proved a heavy yoke), but they murmured at the conduct they were under, and the provision made for them. Note, It is much easier to bring ourselves to the external services of religion, and observe all the formalities of devotion, than to live a life of dependence upon, and submission to, the divine Providence in the course of our conversation.
3. They did this after they had seen God's miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness, Nu 14:2. They would not believe their own eyes, which were witnesses for God that he was in the midst of them of a truth.
4. They had repeated the provocations ten times, that is, very often: the Jewish writers reckon this exactly the tenth time that the body of the congregation had provoked God. First, at