Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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3. They venture notwithstanding. Never was people so perverse and so desperately resolved in every thing to walk contrary to God. God bade them go, and they would not; he forbade them, and they would. Thus is the carnal mind enmity to God: They presumed to go up unto the hill-top, Nu 14:44. Here,
(1.) They struggled against the sentence of divine justice, and would press on in defiance of it.
(2.) They slighted the tokens of God's presence, for they would go though they left Moses and the ark of the covenant behind them. They had distrusted God's strength, and now they presume upon their own without his.
4. The expedition speeds accordingly, Nu 14:45. The enemy had posted themselves upon the top of the hill, to make good that pass against the invaders, and, being informed by their scouts of their approach, sallied out upon them, and defeated them, and it is probable that many of the Israelites were killed. Now the sentence began to be executed that their carcases should fall in the wilderness. Note, That affair can never end well that begins with sin. The way to obtain peace with our friends, and success against our enemies, is to make God our friend, and keep ourselves in his love. The Jews, like these their ancestors, when they had rejected Christ's righteousness, attempted to establish their own, and it sped as this.
41 And Moses said, wherefore now do ye transgress the
commandment of the Lord? But it shall not prosper.
42 Go not up, for the Lord is not among you; that ye be not smitten
before your enemies.
43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye
shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you.
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.