John Gill Bible Commentary

And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel,.... That all that had murmured, who were of twenty years old and upwards, should die in the wilderness, and never see nor enter into the land of Canaan, on the borders of which they now were: and the people mourned greatly; because of their unhappy case, that they should be cut off by death in the wilderness, and be deprived of the enjoyment of the good land; their sorrow seems to have been not a godly sorrow, or true repentance for sin committed, but a worldly sorrow that works death; it was not on account of the evil of sin, the pardon of which they did not seem to seek after, but on account of the evil that was likely to come to them by it.