19 Then we went on from Horeb, through all that great and cruel waste which you saw, on our way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as the Lord gave us orders; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. 20 And I said to you, You have come to the hill-country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. 21 See now, the Lord your God has put the land into your hands: go up and take it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you; have no fear and do not be troubled. 22 And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come. 23 And what you said seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from among you, one from every tribe; 24 And they went up into the hill-country and came to the valley of Eshcol, and saw what was there. 25 And taking in their hands some of the fruit of the land, they came down again to us, and gave us their account, saying, It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us. 26 But going against the order of the Lord your God, you would not go up: 27 And you made an angry outcry in your tents, and said, In his hate for us the Lord has taken us out of the land of Egypt, to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction. 28 Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there. 29 Then I said to you, Have no fear of them. 30 The Lord your God who goes before you will be fighting for you, and will do such wonders as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes; 31 And in the waste land, where you have seen how the Lord was supporting you, as a man does his son, in all your journeying till you came to this place. 32 But for all this, you had no faith in the Lord your God, 33 Who goes before you on your way, looking for a place where you may put up your tents, in fire by night, lighting up the way you are to go, and in a cloud by day.
34 And the Lord, hearing your words, was angry, and said with an oath, 35 Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers, 36 But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he will see it; and to him and to his children I will give the land over which his feet have gone, because he has been true to the Lord with all his heart.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-36
Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-46
(Read Deuteronomy 1:19-46)
Moses reminds the Israelites of their march from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, through that great and terrible wilderness. He shows how near they were to a happy settlement in Canaan. It will aggravate the eternal ruin of hypocrites, that they were not far from the kingdom of God. As if it were not enough that they were sure of their God before them, they would send men before them. Never any looked into the Holy Land, but they must own it to be a good land. And was there any cause to distrust this God? An unbelieving heart was at the bottom of all this. All disobedience to God's laws, and distrust of his power and goodness, flow from disbelief of his word, as all true obedience springs from faith. It is profitable for us to divide our past lives into distinct periods; to give thanks to God for the mercies we have received in each, to confess and seek the forgiveness of all the sins we can remember; and thus to renew our acceptance of God's salvation, and our surrender of ourselves to his service. Our own plans seldom avail to good purpose; while courage in the exercise of faith, and in the path of duty, enables the believer to follow the Lord fully, to disregard all that opposes, to triumph over all opposition, and to take firm hold upon the promised blessings.