(27) How long shall I bear with this evil congregation . . .?—Or, How long shall I pardon (or forgive), &c. The verb is not expressed in the Hebrew. It is probable that one of the verbs in Numbers 14:19, pardon or forgive, should be supplied.

14:20-35 The Lord granted the prayer of Moses so far as not at once to destroy the congregation. But disbelief of the promise forbids the benefit. Those who despise the pleasant land shall be shut out of it. The promise of God should be fulfilled to their children. They wished to die in the wilderness; God made their sin their ruin, took them at their word, and their carcases fell in the wilderness. They were made to groan under the burden of their own sin, which was too heavy for them to bear. Ye shall know my breach of promise, both the causes of it, that it is procured by your sin, for God never leaves any till they first leave him; and the consequences of it, that will produce your ruin. But your little ones, now under twenty years old, which ye, in your unbelief, said should be a prey, them will I bring in. God will let them know that he can put a difference between the guilty and the innocent, and cut them off without touching their children. Thus God would not utterly take away his loving kindness.Render: And now the Amalekites and the Canaanites are dwelling (or abiding) in the valley: wherefore turn you, etc. (that so ye be not smitten before them). The Amalekites were the nomad bands that roved through the open pastures of the plain Numbers 14:45 : the Canaanites, a term here taken in its wider sense, were the Amorites of the neighboring cities (compare Numbers 14:45 with Deuteronomy 1:44), who probably lived in league with the Amalekites.

Tomorrow - Not necessarily the next day, but an idiom for "hereafter," "henceforward" (compare the marginal reading in Exodus 13:14; Joshua 4:6).

By the way of the Red sea - That is, apparently, by the eastern or Elanitic gulf.

25. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley)—that is, on the other side of the Idumean mountain, at whose base they were then encamped. Those nomad tribes had at that time occupied it with a determination to oppose the further progress of the Hebrew people. Hence God gave the command that they seek a safe and timely retreat into the desert, to escape the pursuit of those resolute enemies, to whom, with their wives and children, they would fall a helpless prey because they had forfeited the presence and protection of God. This verse forms an important part of the narrative and should be freed from the parenthetical form which our English translators have given it. Bear with, or pardon, as Numbers 14:19,20, or spare; which words are necessarily and easily understood. It is a short and imperfect speech, which is frequent in case of anger, as Exodus 32:32 Psalm 6:3 90:13.

How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me?.... Bear with their murmurings, spare them, and not cut them off? how long must sparing mercy be extended to them? the Lord speaks as one weary of forbearing, so frequent and aggravated were their murmurings. The Jews understand this not of the whole congregation of Israel, but of the ten spies, from whence they gather, that ten make a congregation; and they interpret the phrase, "which murmur against me", transitively, "which cause to murmur against me"; made the children of Israel murmur against him, so Jarchi; but rather all the people are meant, as appears from Numbers 14:28, and from the following clause:

I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me; for their murmurings were not only against Moses and Aaron, but against the Lord himself, Numbers 14:2.

How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.