Bible Commentaries

Me - He speaks here in the name, and on the behalf of the whole nation. With - With those favours which thou dost usually and peculiarly give to thy people.

See - Enjoy. Chosen - Of thy chosen people; such as are Israelites indeed. Gladness - Such joy as thou hast formerly afforded unto thy beloved nation. Glory - That we may have occasion to glory in God's goodness towards us. Inheritance - In the congregation of thy people.

Glory - As our fathers did.

At the sea - When those wonders were but newly done, and fresh in memory.

Saved them - That he may vindicate his name from the blasphemous reproaches, which would have been cast upon it, if they had been destroyed.

Led them - As securely as if they had walked upon the dry land.

Soon - Even within three days, Exodus 15:22-23 . Waited not - They did not wait patiently upon God for supplies, in such manner and time as he thought fit.

Lusted - For flesh.

Souls - Into their bodies. So their inordinate desire of pampering their bodies, was the occasion of destroying them.

The saint - So called, because he was consecrated by God for that sacred office of the priesthood, in which respect all the priests are said to be holy, Leviticus 21:6-8 . Hereby he intimates, that their envy and rebellion was not only against Aaron, but against God himself.

A calf - When they were but just brought out of Egypt by such wonders, and had seen the plagues of God upon the Egyptian idolaters, and when the law of God was but newly delivered to them in such a tremendous manner.

Their glory - God, who was indeed their glory. Into - Into the golden image of an ox or calf, which is so far from feeding his people, as the true God did the Israelites, that he must be fed by them.

Breach - God had made a wall about them; but they had made a breach in it by their sins, at which the Lord, who was now justly become their enemy, might enter to destroy them; which he had certainly done, if Moses by his prevailing intercession had not hindered him.

Despised - Preferring Egypt, and their former bondage, before it, Numbers 14:3-4 .

The voice - To God's command, that they should boldly enter into it.

Lifted up - He sware. Of this dreadful and irrevocable oath of God, see Numbers 14:11-12 .

Overthrow - He sware also (tho' not at the same time) that he would punish their sins, not only in their persons, but in their posterity.

Joined - They had communion with him, as God's people have with God in acts of his worship.

And - It was accepted and rewarded of God as an act of justice and piety.

Devils - They did not worship God as they pretended, but devils in their idols; for those spirits, which were supposed by the Heathen idolaters to inhabit in their images, were not good spirits, but evil spirits, or devils.

Counsel - By forsaking God's way, and following their own inventions.

Repented - Changed his course and dealing with them.