Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 14:12
I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.
12. make of thee a nation ] Moses would be a second Abraham, the whole nation being descended from him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And disinherit them – By the proposed extinction of Israel the blessings of the covenant would revert to their original donor.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Num 14:12
I will smite them . . . and will make of thee a greater nation.
Proffer of Jehovah, and answer of Moses
This is the second time that Jehovah, in His holy anger, had proposed to deal thus with Moses and make him the head of a righteous seed to receive the inheritance which Israel has so justly forfeited. How would any one else have acted in his place? As the offer comes from Jehovah, can the Judge of all the earth do wrong? And if the forbearance of Jehovah is exhausted, may not the patience of Moses well be? Here is an offer that will release him from the thankless burden of a cowardly, degraded people, which has again and again almost crushed him. Shall he not accept it, and not only free himself from trouble, but rise to the greatness in history of being the outflowing stock of the visible kingdom of God? No, Moses has in himself an intrinsic greatness of soul beyond all that, though it may make his name less celebrated. He will not dissociate himself from his people. He will rather be the type of the great Intercessor who is to come. The singleness of heart with which, as a saint, he loves God shall not impair the passionate love that bound him to his people. Yea, and above the love of his people rises his passionate earnestness for the honour of Jehovah. Lying there prostrate on the ground before the brightness at the tabernacle, hear–as you may almost hear in the Hebrew–his sobs in broken sentences, as he argues the case with Jehovah and pleads for his people. And Egypt will hear that Thou hast brought Thy people in Thy might out of the midst of her; and they will say to the inhabitants of this land, they have heard how Thou, Jehovah, went in the midst of Thy people, seen of them face to face, and Thy cloud standing over them; even Thou, Jehovah, going in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. And Thou wilt make Thy people die as one man. And they will say, the nations that have heard tell of Thee: Through being not able to lead His people into the land that He had sworn to them, He hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech Thee, the might of Jehovah shall be magnified, even as Thou hast spoken, saying, Jehovah, long-suffering and of great mercy, bearing iniquity and transgression, and not cleansing, but visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation: forgive, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people according to Thy great mercy, and as Thou hast been gracious to them from Egypt up to this present time. Do not these passionate pleadings raise Moses nearer than any born of woman to the type of the great Intercessor? And yet, now, with the great Intercessor on his side, the least in the kingdom of heaven, who is truly in Christ–one with Christ, is greater in power than Moses at the throne. (S. Robinson, D. D.)
The gentleness of Moses
Of Moses it was to be said in miniature what of his Antitype can be said in full–that his gentleness made him great. Not when he parted the waters of the Red Sea, not when he sang his hymn of triumph on the shores of liberty, is he half so great as when he bore the sorrows and endured the murmurings of that rude, undisciplined multitude. If ever a man has inherited the earth by meekness, that man was Moses. His was a grand, unselfish life, made to wait upon the lives of others. (G. Matheson, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
This was not an absolute determination, as the event showed, but only a condition, like that of Ninevehs destruction within forty days, with a condition implied, except there be speedy repentance, or powerful intercession.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. the Lord said, . . . I willsmite them with the pestilencenot a final decree, but athreatening, suspended, as appeared from the issue, on theintercession of Moses and the repentance of Israel.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them,…. Deprive them of inhabiting the land; so as many as died of the pestilence were even all the spies who brought an evil report of the good land, Nu 14:37; with respect to the body of the people, this is to be considered not as a peremptory decree or a determined point; but is delivered partly by way of proposal to Moses, to draw out from him what he would say to it; and partly by way of threatening to the people, to bring them to a sense of their sin and repentance for it:
and will make of thee a greater nation, and mightier than they: this anticipates an objection that might be made, should the people of Israel be cut off by the plague, and so disinherited of the land of Canaan, what will become of the oath of God made to their fathers? to which the answer is, it would be fulfilled in making the posterity of Moses as great or a greater and more powerful nation than Israel now was, and by introducing them into the land of Canaan, who would be of the seed of the fathers of Israel, as Jarchi observes, as those people were; and this was said to prove Moses, and try his affection to the people of Israel; and give him an opportunity of showing his public and disinterested spirit.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(12) And will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.A similar promise had been given to Moses on occasion of the rebellion at Sinai, and Moses on that occasion interceded with God on behalf of His people in like manner as at this time (Exo. 32:10-12).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. The pestilence Greek, death, violent and sudden. See Num 14:15. Thus in Lev 26:25; Deu 28:21. Comp. Rev 2:23; Rev 6:8.
Disinherit them Annul their adoption into sonship. Exo 4:22. This shows that the covenant made with the patriarchs relating to the future of their posterity was not absolute, but conditioned on the fidelity of each generation. This is corroborated by the fact that Moses, in his plea for the life of the nation, fails to urge the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Make of thee a greater nation One man, fully trusting in God, is mightier than a million of infidels, since God and one are virtually a majority. All things are possible to him that believeth. The Almighty can accomplish more through one unwavering, heroic believer, than he can through a whole nation of unbelievers. This is amply verified in the life of John Wesley and the opposition of that apathetic national Church which he sought to vitalize. In the light of this suggestion, that Moses was to become the founder of a new nation, the unselfish prayer for Israel, which immediately follows, stands forth in marked contrast with that ambition which has often waded through slaughter to a throne.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Num 14:12. I will smite them with the pestilence See Exo 9:15; Exo 9:35 where a similar transaction is expressed in a similar manner. It appears from Num 14:15 that Moses understood this denunciation of the pestilence as importing a general destruction of the people.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Num 14:12 I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.
Ver. 12. And I will make of thee a greater nation. ] Here God offered Moses a private fortune, which he prudently refuseth, because God should be a loser by it. And surely, saith a divine, as God was displeased with Balsam for going, though he bade him go: so the Lord would not have taken it so kindly of Moses if he had taken him upon the offer he made in a time of his heat, against his people.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
smite: Num 16:46-49, Num 25:9, Exo 5:3, 2Sa 24:1, 2Sa 24:12-15
will make: Exo 32:10
Reciprocal: Gen 12:2 – General Exo 33:3 – for I Lev 26:25 – I will send Num 14:37 – died Num 16:21 – that I may Deu 9:14 – and I will Deu 28:21 – General 2Ch 7:13 – I send Eze 14:19 – if I Eze 20:13 – I said Hab 3:5 – went 1Co 10:5 – General Heb 4:6 – some
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Num 14:12. I will smite them This was not an absolute determination, but a commination, like that of Ninevehs destruction, with a condition implied, except there be speedy repentance, or powerful intercession.