Bible Commentaries

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.

And the people wept that night. — As being too light of belief: the lies of the spies they took for oracles.

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And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!

Would God that we had died. — Words of deep discontent, despair, and unthanklulness.

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And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?

Were it not better for us to return into Egypt. — How could that be better? It is our wisest way, to crush the very first insurrections of unruly passions (do not great storms rise out of little gusts?); to smother the smoke thereof, which else will fume up into the head, and gather into so thick a cloud, as we shall soon lose the sight of ourselves, and what is best to be done.

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And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

Let us make a captain. — Thus they proceeded from bad to worse. Passions, like heavy bodies down steep hills, once in motion move themselves, and know no ground but the bottom. Whether this people did make them such a captain, for such a purpose, is uncertain; but howsoever their very intention of doing it, is charged upon them, as if they had done it. Nehemiah 9:16-17

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Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

Before all the assembly. — What they said unto them see Deuteronomy 1:29-30 . See also on Numbers 16:15 .

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And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, [which were] of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:

Rent their clothes. — And wept, saith Sulpitius.

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Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they [are] bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD [is] with us: fear them not.

They are bread for us, — q.d., We shall make but a breakfast of them. So that valiant Prince of Orange told his soldiers at the battle of Newport, when they had the sea on the one side, and the Spaniards on the other, that they must either eat up those Spaniards, or drink up that sea.

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But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.

But all the congregation bade stone them. — This is merces mundi, this is the fruit of ochlocratie, that rule of rascality, as one calls it.

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