Nehemiah 9:20

20 You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouths, 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 Even when they had cast an image of a calf for themselves and said, "This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and had committed great blasphemies,

19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud that led them in the way did not leave them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night that gave them light on the way by which they should go.

20 You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and gave them water for their thirst.

21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

22 And you gave them kingdoms and peoples, and allotted to them every corner, so they took possession of the land of King Sihon of Heshbon and the land of King Og of Bashan.