(46) So ye abode in Kadesh many days.--Better, and. In Numbers 14:25 the command was, "Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness." This command was broken by the attack on the Canaanites, made on the morrow after the command. We cannot be certain that the many days spent in Kadesh were spent after the defeat. It may be merely a note of the fact that the time spent in Kadesh was considerable. The mission of the spies alone occupied forty days.
According unto the days that ye abode there.--The Jewish commentator Rashi, quoting from Seder Olam, says they in Kadesh, and nineteen in their wanderings.
Verse 46. - It was unnecessary that Moses should tell the people the precise length of time they abode in Kadesh after this, because that was well known to them; he, therefore, contents himself with saying that they remained there as long as they did remain (comp. for a similar expression, Deuteronomy 9:25). How long they actually remained there cannot be determined, for the expression, many days, is wholly indefinite.
1:19-46 Moses reminds the Israelites of their march from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, through that great and terrible wilderness. He shows how near they were to a happy settlement in Canaan. It will aggravate the eternal ruin of hypocrites, that they were not far from the kingdom of God. As if it were not enough that they were sure of their God before them, they would send men before them. Never any looked into the Holy Land, but they must own it to be a good land. And was there any cause to distrust this God? An unbelieving heart was at the bottom of all this. All disobedience to God's laws, and distrust of his power and goodness, flow from disbelief of his word, as all true obedience springs from faith. It is profitable for us to divide our past lives into distinct periods; to give thanks to God for the mercies we have received in each, to confess and seek the forgiveness of all the sins we can remember; and thus to renew our acceptance of God's salvation, and our surrender of ourselves to his service. Our own plans seldom avail to good purpose; while courage in the exercise of faith, and in the path of duty, enables the believer to follow the Lord fully, to disregard all that opposes, to triumph over all opposition, and to take firm hold upon the promised blessings.
So ye abode in Kadesh many days,.... Yea, some years, as some think:
according to the days that ye abode there; that is, according to Jarchi, as they did in the rest of the journeys or stations; so that as they were thirty eight years in all at several places, they were nineteen years in Kadesh; the same is affirmed in the Jewish chronology (w). Maimonides says (x) they were eighteen years in one place, and it is very probable he means this; but Aben Ezra interprets it otherwise, and takes the sense to be, that they abode as many days here after their return as they did while the land was searching, which were forty days, Numbers 13:25, but without fixing any determinate time, the meaning may only be, that as they had been many days here before this disaster, so they continued many days after in the same place before they marched onward into the wilderness again.
(w) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 24. (x) Moreh Nevochim. par. 3. c. 50.
According unto the days that ye abode there.--The Jewish commentator Rashi, quoting from Seder Olam, says they in Kadesh, and nineteen in their wanderings.
according to the days that ye abode there; that is, according to Jarchi, as they did in the rest of the journeys or stations; so that as they were thirty eight years in all at several places, they were nineteen years in Kadesh; the same is affirmed in the Jewish chronology (w). Maimonides says (x) they were eighteen years in one place, and it is very probable he means this; but Aben Ezra interprets it otherwise, and takes the sense to be, that they abode as many days here after their return as they did while the land was searching, which were forty days, Numbers 13:25, but without fixing any determinate time, the meaning may only be, that as they had been many days here before this disaster, so they continued many days after in the same place before they marched onward into the wilderness again.
(w) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 24. (x) Moreh Nevochim. par. 3. c. 50.