John Calvin Commentary Numbers 14:3

"And wherefore doth Jehovah bring us unto this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey: were it not better for us to return into Egypt?" — Numbers 14:3 (ASV)

And why has the Lord brought us into this land? The pride, and even the madness of their impiety, is more fully revealed here when they accuse God of deception and cruelty, as if He were betraying them to the Canaanite nations and leading them out to slaughter. For they conclude that they should not obey His command because He would destroy them, and not only that, but He would also at the same time give their wives and children as prey.

We see how mad unbelief is when it is let loose, since these wretched people do not hesitate to bring charges against God and to repay His kindnesses by calling Him their betrayer.

But what was the cause of this blasphemous audacity,⁵⁴ other than that they hear they would have to deal with powerful enemies? It was as if they had not experienced God’s might to be so great that nothing they might encounter was to be feared while He was on their side! At the same time, they also accuse God of weakness, as if He were less powerful than the nations of Canaan.

Finally, their monstrous blindness and senselessness comes to its climax when they consult about their return and, rejecting Moses, set about choosing a leader who might deliver them up again to Pharaoh.

Were they so quickly forgetful of how wretched their condition there had been? The Egyptians had so cruelly afflicted them for no fault of their own, but while they were peaceful and harmless guests; indeed, they were hated by Pharaoh for no other reason than because he could not tolerate their large numbers.

What, then, was he likely to do, when, because of them, he had undergone so many calamities? What humanity, again, could be expected from that nation which had already conspired for their destruction, when it had suffered no injury from them? Surely there was no house among them that would not long to avenge its first-born!

Yet they desire to give themselves up to the will of a most bitter enemy, who, without any cause for ill-will, had gone to every extreme against them. Hence we clearly see that unbelievers are not only blinded by the just vengeance of God but are also carried away by a spirit of delusion, so that they inflict upon themselves the greatest evils.

⁵⁴ “D’une audace tant diabolique;” of such diabolical audacity. — Fr.