Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
Ver. 10. Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt] Which lies lower than Judea; as doth also mystical Egypt than Jerusalem, which is above, which is the mother of us all. To what great preferments and privileges God's people are now brought up by Christ. See Hebrews 12:22,24, and cry out, with that noble Athenian, εξ, οιων εις οια, from how great miseries to what great mercies are we advanced! Even from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God: that we may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among the saints, Acts 26:18. And shall we then again break God's commandments? Ezra 9:14, or say, "We are delivered to do all these abominations," Jeremiah 7:10. Would not the heaven sweat over us, and the earth cleave under us, yea, hell gape for us upon such an entertainment of Divine bounty?
And led you forty years through the wilderness] Led you all along in my hand "as a horse in the wilderness," that ye "should not stumble," Isaiah 63:13. Led you, and fed you daily and daintily, sending you in angel's food, and then setting the flint abroach that you might not pine and perish in that vast howling wilderness, Deuteronomy 32:10. Besides that, I there bore with your evil manners (ετροποφορησεν), Acts 13:18, as a mother bears with her child's frowardness; or as a husband bears with his wife's crossness, which he knows he must either tollere or tolerare, cure or cover.
To possess the land of the Amorite] To fit you for such a mercy, to humble you, to prove you, and to do you good at the latter end, Deuteronomy 8:16. God knows the height of our spirits and the naughtiness of our natures, &c.; how ill able men's brains are to bear a cup of prosperity; and how soon their hearts are lifted up with their estates, as a boat that riseth with the rising of the water. God, therefore, usually brings his people into the wilderness, and there "speaketh to their hearts," Hosea 2:14; he holds them first to hard meat, and then puts them into full possession.