How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, [and] grieve him in the desert!
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness] Exclamatio pathetica. Ten times at least in the first two years, Numbers 16:1,50; Numbers 17:1,13; Numbers 18:1,32; Num 19:1-22 What, then, in all the rest? Quis fando possit enarrare tot rebelliones. From the very day they came out of Egypt they were always contending against the Lord, as Moses telleth them, when he was taking his leave of them, Deuteronomy 31:16,18 .
And grieve him in the desert] Where they were at his mercy, and at his immediate finding.