For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned. There is here given a very full and impressive vindication of the divine procedure in punishing his highly privileged but rebellious and apostate people (Havernick, 'Old Testament,' p. 51; Graves, 2:, p. 171). No wonder that, amid so gross a perversion of the worship of the true God, and the national propensity to do reverence to idols, the divine patience was exhausted, and that the God whom they had forsaken, by violating the national covenant, an adherence to which formed their title to the occupation of Canaan, permitted them to go into captivity, that they might learn the difference between His service and that of their despotic conquerors.