bring even the youngest of them to be n man of sixty, and thus, though the wear- ing away might be velJ' ~adu11l, yet it would be none the less certain. The rule ie made more express and rigorous by the very exceptions in Caleb and Joshua. IV. THOUGH THEY THEMSELVES WERE DOOMED, CLEAR INDICATION IS GIVEN TO THEM THAT GoD'B PUBPOBEB WOULD BE ACCOMPLISHED. Forty years, and they would be gone I and whnt then? Why they themselves would be the instruments, and that to a large extent unconsciously, of fulfilling the velJ' purpose which once they seemed to have imperilled. Their little ones God would bring into the land. "Your little ones, which ye said should be a prey." Men are fearful when they ought to be bold, and bold when they ought to be .fearful. Israel was alarmed for its tender offspring, but not afraid to rebel against God, and treat his servants with contempt. And n?w God says that in the exercise of his providence and the carrying out of his extensive plans, these velJ' children, these infants, helpless on the mother's br~ast, shall e~ter and conquer where their fathers were afraid to go. Another generation would anse, not knowing Egypt except at second hand, and which could not very well lust after things it had never tasted. The delay in accomplishing God's purposes was more apparent than real. The loss was chiefly a loss to the disobedient themselves. God can take the most adverse things, the most determined outbreaks of the wicked, and work them in with his own purposes. V. AN ILLUSTRATION IS ll'UBNISHED OF THE TRUTH THAT CHILDREN HAVE TO Bli.ll THE BINS OF THE PARENTS (ver. 33). A dreadful name, and only too frequent in his after-dealings with Israel, does the Lord give to these sins-" whoredoms " he calls them, The generations of men are so interwoven that the blow which falls on the parent cannot be entirely averted from the child. Not only was the punished generation an.fit for entrance, but its children had to wait in consequence. The children born on this very day of sentence would be well on in manhood when they entered the land. Sinners should well consider how their sin includes others in its consequences. The Israelites thought they were doing a good thing for their little ones when they rebelled ; but the real result was the detention of them forty years in the wilderness. If the fathers had been believing, they could have entered at once, and brought up their children in the land flowing with milk and honey. As it was, they had to nourish them in the wilderness, and on the manna they so much despised. VL THERE 18 SOMETHING THROUGH ALL THESE FORTY YEARS TO REMIND THEM OF TBEm BIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. As the unbelievers died off one by one, and as each succeeding year began, and whenever Caleb and Joshua appeared, there was something to remind of God's chastising hand.-Y.
Vera. 39-45.-.A confesSW/1, contradicted in action. The way of Israel seems now closed up. The way to Egypt is closed, and also the way to the promised land, where of late was fixed up the clear intimation," This is the way, walk ye in it." There is now but one w11y open-to wander in this wilderness for forty years till all the rebels have passed away. The full measure of their doom is now before them, and as it appears in all its naked severity, it fills them with grief and consternation. Everything corroborates the word of Moses. The ten spies who brought up the slanderous report are lying plague-stricken corpses, while Caleb and Joshua stand among the living confessed by God himself as faithful and true witnesses. Never- theless. in the midst of this utter collapse the people were not unprovided for ns to their course of action (ver. 25). God had told Moses the direction into which to take them. But they cannot learn even so much obedience as this without being taught it in a terrible lesson. I. WE HA.VE A CONFESSION CONTRADICTED EVEN WHILE IT WAS BEING MADE. The confession is, 11 We have sinned." It is very easy to say this, and to say it meaning something by it, but in a great multitude of cases it is said with very little under- standing of what sin really is. Pharaoh said at Inst, when he had been visited with seven plagues II I have sinned this time: the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked" (Exod. ix. 27); but as soon as the rain, hail, and thunders ceased at the intercession of Moses, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart. So with the Israelites here i it was not sin they felt, but suffering. If they had truly felt sin, NUllBKBS, H 178 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CHS. xm., XIV'.