John Calvin Commentary Numbers 32:8

"Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land." — Numbers 32:8 (ASV)

Thus did your fathers. He amplifies their crime by referring to their continued perversity. Far from being an excuse for their children, the imitation of ungodly parents actually doubles their guilt. In the same way, Stephen alleges against the Jews of his day their perseverance in the sins of their fathers, as if he had cried out against them that they were “the bad eggs of bad birds.”

“You stiff-necked (he says) and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you.” (Acts 7:51).

Similarly, the Prophet, when he exhorts their posterity to obedience, reminds them of these same circumstances:

“Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation,” etc.
(Psalms 95:8–10).

Not without reason, Moses now complains that there was no end or limit to their impiety, while the sons inherited their fathers’ iniquity and did not cease to resist God; and, to make the similarity and affinity of their crime more apparent, he reviews their history at some length. He does not, however, compare the Reubenites and Gadites to the whole people, but to the ten spies from whom the sedition arose, because, as far as it was in their power, they turned the people aside from the right way.

Secondly, he connects with this the punishment that followed, so that, at least, he might inspire them with terror, since it was unlikely they would repent of their own accord. He reminds them, therefore, that when God dealt so severely with their fathers, He had given them a striking proof that their descendants would not go unpunished unless they were teachable and submissive.

The expression is remarkable, “Because they fulfilled not after me;”²¹⁵ by which he means that there is nothing praiseworthy in the most vigorous course unless people persevere to the very end. And, although this had happened forty years ago, still, since the vengeance God had threatened had been before their eyes up to that day, they ought to be just as affected by it as if they saw God's hand still outstretched.

For, whenever anyone died in the desert, God thereby set His seal to His vengeance, lest it should ever be forgotten.²¹⁶ If, then, God had been so wrathful with the multitude in general, how much less would the instigators themselves escape?

²¹⁵ See Margin, A. V. Ver. 11..

²¹⁶ “Or, il conclud du plus petit au plus grand;” he argues then from the less to the greater, that, etc. — Fr.