Nehemiah 9:20

20 You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You 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 cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,

19 You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go.

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

21 For 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 You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner of the land. So they took the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of Og king of Bashan.