Numbers 18

Numbers 18:4

Not able - His power was quite spent in bringing them out of Egypt, and could not finish the work he had begun and had sworn to do.

Numbers 18:5

Be great - That is appear to be great, discover its greatness: namely, the power of his grace and mercy, or the greatness of his mercy, in pardoning this and their other sins: for to this the following words manifestly restrain it, where the pardon of their sins is the only instance of this power both described in God’s titles, Numbers 14:18, and prayed for by Moses Numbers 14:19, and granted by God in answer to him, 14:20. Nor is it strange that the pardon of sin, especially such great sins, is spoken of as an act of power in God, because undoubtedly it is an act of omnipotent and infinite goodness.

Numbers 18:6

Visiting the iniquity - These words may seem to be improperly mentioned, as being a powerful argument to move God to destroy this wicked people, and not to pardon them. It may be answered, that Moses useth these words together with the rest, because he would not sever what God had put together. But the truer answer seems to be, that these words are to be translated otherwise, And in destroying he will not utterly destroy, though he visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation.

Numbers 18:8

I have pardoned - So far as not utterly to destroy them.

Numbers 18:9

With the glory of the Lord - With the report of the glorious and righteous acts of God in punishing this rebellious people.

Numbers 18:10

My glory - That is, my glorious appearances in the cloud, and in the tabernacle. Ten times - That is, many times. A certain number for an uncertain.

Numbers 18:12

Caleb - Joshua is not named, because he was not now among the people, but a constant attendant upon Moses, nor was he to be reckoned as one of them, any more than Moses and Aaron were, because he was to be their chief commander. He had another spirit - Was a man of another temper, faithful and courageous, not acted by that evil spirit of cowardice, unbelief, disobedience, which ruled in his brethren but by the spirit of God. Fully - Universally and constantly, through difficulties and dangers, which made his partners halt. Whereinto he went - In general, Canaan, and particularly Hebron, and the adjacent parts, Joshua 14:9.

Numbers 18:13

In the valley - Beyond the mountain, at the foot whereof they now were, Numbers 14:40. And this clause is added, either As an aggravation of Israel’s misery and punishment, that being now ready to enter and take possession of the land, they are forced to go back into the wilderness or As an argument to oblige them more willingly to obey the following command of returning into the wilderness, because their enemies were very near them, and severed from them only by that Idumean mountain, and, if they did not speedily depart, their enemies would fall upon them, and so the evil which before they causelessly feared would come upon them; they, their wives and their children, would become a prey to the Amalekites and Canaanites, because God would not assist nor defend them. By the way of the Red - sea - That leadeth to the Red - sea, and to Egypt, the place whither you desire to return.

Numbers 18:16

As ye have spoken - When you wickedly wished you might die in the wilderness.

Numbers 18:18

You - Your nation; for God did not swear to do so to these particular persons.

Numbers 18:20

Your carcases - See with what contempt they are spoken of, now they had by their sin made themselves vile! The mighty men of valour were but carcases, now the Spirit of the Lord was departed from them! It was very probably upon this occasion, that Moses wrote the ninetieth psalm.

Numbers 18:21

Forty years - So long as to make up the time of your dwelling in the wilderness forty years; one whole year and part of another were past before this sin or judgment. Your whoredoms - The punishment of your whoredoms, of your apostacy from, and perfidiousness against your Lord, who was your husband, and had married you to himself.

Numbers 18:22

Each day for a year - So there should have been forty years to come, but God was pleased mercifully to accept of the time past as a part of that time. Ye shall know my breach of promise - That as you have first broken the covenant between you and me, by breaking the conditions of it, so I will make it void on my part, by denying you the blessings promised in that covenant. So you shall see, that the breach of promise wherewith you charged me, lies at your door, and was forced from me by your perfidiousness.

Numbers 18:25

By the plague - Either by the pestilence, or by some other sudden and extraordinary judgment, sent from the cloud in which God dwelt, and from whence he spake to Moses, and wherein his glory at this time appeared before all the people, Numbers 14:10, who therefore were all, and these spies among the rest, before the Lord.

Numbers 18:26

But Joshua and Caleb lived still - Death never misses his mark, nor takes any by oversight who are designed for life, tho’ in the midst of those that are to die.

Numbers 18:27

And the people mourned greatly - But it was now too late. There was now no place for repentance. Such mourning as this there is in hell; but the tears will not quench the flames.

Numbers 18:28

Gat them up - Designed or prepared themselves to go up.