How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!
-The Israelites in the time of the Judges tempted God by forgetting His judgments in Egypt in Israel's behalf, which are here detailed, as also His love in bringing Israel into Canaan.
Verse 40. How oft did they provoke ... and grieve him in the desert! - (Psalms 95:9-10: Isaiah 63:10.) "They vexed His Holy Spirit," Ephesians 4:30; Ezekiel 16:43, 'thou hast fretted me.'
Verse 41. Yea, they turned back, and tempted God - Hebrew idiom, 'They tempted God anew.' The rebellion of Israel in the time of the Judges in Canaan was a new provoking of God, as their fathers had provoked Him before "in the wilderness" (Psalms 78:40).
And limited the Holy One of Israel. The very title of God reproves their unbelieving perversity; the God whose sanctity had been proved by so many miracles before Israel (Psalms 71:22). "Limited" - circumscribed Him with bounds, virtually saying that there are some things which He cannot do; up to a certain point He has power, but after that He has not [from taawaah (H8427), to mark with a sign: as the letter Tau (t), Ezekiel 9:4; Numbers 34:7-8]. Compare Psalms 78:20, above, as an instance of their fathers limiting God. Hengstenberg takes the Hebrew in the sense to 'brand' with dishonour. The Septuagint, 'they exasperated.' I prefer the English version.
Verse 43. How he had wrought his signs in Egypt - reverting to Psalms 78:12 - "Marvellous things did He ... in
... Egypt." Here the marvels of God in Egypt are set forth in fuller detail, in order to show by the sad contrast the wickedness of the sons: for it was for their sakes, as much as for their fathers, that those marvels were performed; so that God had the strongest claims upon their loving obedience (cf. Exodus 10:1-2; Psalms 105:27).
Verse 44 And had turned their rivers into blood - the first plague. "Rivers" - i:e., the different canals of the as the cause of the death of the first-born, yet there is nothing there inconsistent with this; nay, Exodus 9:15 implies it.
Verse 51. The chief of their strength - the first-fruits of their strength; poetically for the first-born (Genesis 49:3; Deuteronomy 21:17; Psalms 105:36; cf. Exodus 12:29).
The tabernacles of Ham - whose true offspring Egypt was, as well in blood as in wickedness (Genesis 9:22; Genesis 10:6).
Verse 52. But made his own people to go forth like sheep - (Exodus 12:37; Exodus 15:22.)
An guided them in the wilderness-which began on this side of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:3).
Verse 53. And he led them on safely, so that they feared not - i:e., so that they had no cause to fear. Not Israel's fearlessness of faith, but God's grace in removing all grounds of fear, is the subject of praise (Exodus 14:13).
Verse 54. And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, even to this mountain, which his right hand had purchased - Zion, the spiritual center of the Holy Land. Though, it was not gotten possession of by Israel until David's time, it was viewed as destined to be theirs and by God's gift theirs from the first. Compare Exodus 15:13; Exodus 15:17, which passage is verbally referred to here, "Thou shalt bring them in ... the mountain of thine inheritance ... in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established." It was hallowed by Abraham's offering of Isaac upon it, (Genesis 22:1-24.) Not all Canaan is meant, as in Deuteronomy 3:25: but Mount Zion (Psalms 74:2; Psalms 68:16). The Psalmist's object is to give prominence to Zion above Shiloh, that so Israel's northern tribes might not, as in former instances, prove rebellious against the will of the Lord.
Verse 55. He cast out the heathen also before them (the Israelites), and divided them (the pagan) an inheritance by line. He caused them (the pagan - i:e., their territory) to fall as an inheritance by the measuring line (Numbers 34:2; Psalms 105:11, margin; 16:6; 13:7).