Numbers 32:15

15 If you turn from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you would have destroyed all these people."

Numbers 32:15 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 32:15

For if ye turn away from after him
From following him in the way of his commandments, from attending his word, worship, and ordinances, and from walking after him, who went before them in a pillar of cloud and fire, as it is suggested they would, should they stop short here and not go over Jordan into the land of Canaan:

he will yet again leave them in the wilderness;
as he did at the time of the affair of the spies, when they were ordered to turn and get into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea, and where they had been ever since unto this time, ( Numbers 14:25 ) ,

and ye shall destroy all this people;
be the cause of their destruction, if the Lord should in such a manner resent this step of theirs, as to order them back into the wilderness again, though they were now as they were before, on the border of the land of Canaan.

Numbers 32:15 In-Context

13 And {Yahweh became angry}, and he made them wander in the desert forty years until the entire generation who did evil in the {sight of Yahweh} {had died}.

14 Behold, you stand in the place of your fathers, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more {Yahweh's fierce anger} against Israel.

15 If you turn from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you would have destroyed all these people."

16 They came near to him and said, "We will build sheep pens here for [the] flock of our livestock and cities for our little children;

17 but we ourselves will become armed [and] ready before the {Israelites} until we have brought them to their place, and our little children will live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew "him"