I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
I said, I would scatter them. One leading design of the selection of Israel was, besides the instituted means of preserving in that nation the knowledge and worship of God, to diffuse the same knowledge to some extent among the surrounding pagan by this miraculous procedure and distinguishing favour to them. A regard to this object is frequently manifested in the plan of the divine government of that people, and as a motive influencing the measures of the divine dispensation (Exodus 9:14; Numbers 14:11-26).
'The same motive,' says Graves ('Lectures on the Pentateuch,' 2:, p. 362), 'is represented as operating to prevail upon Jehovah (Yahweh) to withhold the full punishment in justice due to the crimes of this wayward people.' Thus, in his last solemn hymn, in which the lawgiver exhibits a prophetic sketch of the entire dealing of God with His people, after enumerating the signal punishments which would follow their apostasies, he adds, "I would scatter them into corners, were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely; and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this."