Numbers 14:34 - Exposition

After the number of the days … each day for a year. It is said, and truly, that the connection between the two periods was arbitrary, and that the apparent correspondence lay only upon the surface. Exactly for this reason it was the better fitted to fix itself in the mind of a nation incapable of following a deeper and more spiritual analogy of guilt and punishment. It served the purpose which God had in view, viz; to make them feel that the quantity as well as the quality of their punishment was entirely due to themselves; and it needed no other justification. If God assigns reasons at all, he assigns such as can be understood by those to whom he speaks. Ye shall know my breach of promise. תְּנוּאָתִי . The noun only occurs elsewhere in Job 33:10 , but the verb is found in Numbers 32:7 in the sense of "discouraging," or "turning away" . Here it must mean "my withdrawal," or "my turning aside, from you." They should know by sad experience that "with the froward" God will "show" himself "froward" ( Psalms 18:26 ).