Wesley Corpus

A sign - Of their being peculiarly my people. In the wilderness - Where they most needed my care and favour; where the preserving their life from destruction by the noxious creatures, and from famine by the barrenness of the wilderness, was a continued miracle. I lifted up my hand - I sware. Them - So all the murmuring, disobedient, unbelieving generation was excluded, and their children were brought in. Walk ye not - Live not as your fathers did. Hallow - Remember to keep them holy. I withdrew - God seems to take the posture of one that was just going to smite, yet draws back that he might spare. I lifted - I sware. Wherefore - Because they rejected my good laws and judgments. I gave them - Not by enjoining, but by permitting them to make such for themselves. Not good - That were pernicious to the users. Polluted - I permitted them to pollute themselves. Might know - Be forced to own, that the Lord is a mighty king in punishing those that would not have him a gracious king in governing them. What - What mean you that you go to the high place What do you find so inviting there, that you will leave God's altar, where he requires your attendance, to frequent such places as he has forbidden you to worship in Bamah - That is, the high place. Shall I be enquired of - Are you fit to ask counsel of me, whom you have so obstinately forsaken and reproached And that - God to convince them, tells them what they think and have purposed. Shall not be - Shall be quite frustrated. We will be - Will unite with them in marriages, commerce, and religion too; and then we shall be safe among them. The people - Sidonians, Ammonites, Moabites, or whoever they were, to whom the apostate Jews betook themselves, where they thought to lurk, God will bring them thence into Babylonish captivity. Bring you - Drive you. The wilderness - Into the most horrid parts of the world; into the mountainous parts of Media, Hyrcania, Iberia, Caspia, Albania, and Scythia. Plead with you - Pass sentence, and execute it on you. Your fathers - Who died there, and never entered Canaan.