Nehemiah 9:20

20 You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn't withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

Nehemiah 9:20 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 9:20

Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them
In the knowledge of the laws delivered to them; the spirit of prophecy, according to Ben Melech, and which Aben Ezra interprets of the spirit put upon the seventy elders, ( Numbers 11:17 Numbers 11:25 ) ,

and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth;
all the while they were in the wilderness, until they came to Canaan's land; called the Lord's manna, because prepared by him, and given by him to them; a part or portion and gift from the Lord, as Ben Melech, from whence it had its name, see ( Exodus 16:15 )

and gavest them water for their thirst;
which seems to have respect to the last rock stricken for them, after their many provocations in the wilderness, ( Numbers 20:11 ) .

Nehemiah 9:20 In-Context

18 Yes, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is your God who brought you up out of Mitzrayim, and had committed awful blasphemies;

19 yet you in your manifold mercies didn't forsake them in the wilderness: the pillar of cloud didn't depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go.

20 You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn't withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

21 Yes, forty years did you sustain them in the wilderness, [and] they lacked nothing; their clothes didn't grow old, and their feet didn't swell.

22 Moreover you gave them kingdoms and peoples, which you did allot after their portions: so they possessed the land of Sichon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of `Og king of Bashan.