As a nursing-father beareth the sucking child— This is a very lively expression to denote that tenderness and fatherly affection which princes ought to have for their people; and, on the other side, as expressive an emblem of the perverseness of the Israelites, wayward as an infant, which rises up with fury against the very nurse who gives it milk, and carries it in her bosom. Happy the people, whose sovereigns are nurses! Isaiah 49:23. Wretched the sovereigns, whose ungrateful and seditious subjects so ill requite their benefits!
Related Commentaries of Numbers 11:12
Numbers 11:12
12 Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?