Numbers 14:25 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Numbers 14:25. In the valley Beyond the mountain, at the foot whereof they now were, Numbers 14:40. And this clause is added, either, 1st, As an aggravation of Israel's misery and punishment, that being now ready to enter and take possession of the land, they are forced to go back into the wilderness: or, 2d, As an argument to oblige them more willingly to obey the following command of returning into the wilderness, because their enemies were very near them, and severed from them only by that Idumean mountain, and if they did not speedily depart, their enemies would fall upon them, and so the evil which before they causelessly feared would come upon them; they, their wives, and their children, would become a prey to the Amalekites and Canaanites, because God would not assist nor defend them. By the way of the Red sea That leadeth to the Red sea, and to Egypt, the place whither you desire to return.