Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1122

 Thee, this people according to the greatness of Thy mercy, and as Thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.” נשׁא (Num 14:19) = עון נשׁא (Num 14:18).

verses 20-23
In answer to this importunate prayer, the Lord promised forgiveness, namely, the preservation of the nation, but not the remission of the well-merited punishment. At the rebellion at Sinai, He had postponed the punishment “till the day of His visitation” (Exo 32:34). And that day had now arrived, as the people had carried their continued rebellion against the Lord to the furthest extreme, even to an open declaration of their intention to depose Moses, and return to Egypt under another leader, and thus had filled up the measure of their sins. “Nevertheless,” added the Lord (Num 14:21, Num 14:22), “as truly as I live, and the glory of Jehovah will fill the whole earth, all the men who have seen My glory and My miracles...shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers.” The clause, “all the earth,” etc., forms an apposition to “as I live.” Jehovah proves Himself to be living, by the fact that His glory fills the whole earth. But this was to take place, not, as Knobel, who mistakes the true connection of the different clauses, erroneously supposes, by the destruction of the whole of that generation, which would be talked of by all the world, but rather by the fact that, notwithstanding the sin and opposition of these men, He would still carry out His work of salvation to a glorious victory. The כּי in Num 14:22 introduces the substance of the oath, as in Isa 49:18; 1Sa 14:39; 1Sa 20:3; and according to the ordinary form of an oath, אם in Num 14:23 signifies “not.” - “They have tempted Me now ten times.” Ten is used as the number of completeness and full measure; and this answered to the actual fact, if we follow the Rabbins, and add to the murmuring (1) at the Red Sea, Exo 14:11-12; (2) at Marah, Exo 15:23; (3) in the wilderness of Sin, Exo 16:2; (4) at Rephidim, Exo 17:1; (5) at Horeb, Ex 32; (6) at Tabeerah, Num 11:1; (7) at the graves of lust, Num 11:4.; and (8) here again at Kadesh, the twofold rebellion of certain individuals against the commandments of God at the giving of the manna (Exo 16:20 and Exo 16:27). The despisers of God should none of them see the promised land.

Verse 24
But because there was another spirit in Caleb, - i.e., not the unbelieving, despairing, yet proud and rebellious spirit of the great mass of the people, but the spirit of obedience and believing trust, so that “he followed Jehovah fully” (lit., “fulfilled to walk behind Jehovah”), followed Him with unwavering fidelity, - God would bring him into the land into which he had gone, and his seed should