6 And Moses said to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben, Are your brothers to go to the war, while you take your rest here? 7 Why would you take from the children of Israel the desire to go over into the land which the Lord has given them? 8 So did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. 9 For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, they took from the children of Israel the desire to go into the land which the Lord had given them. 10 And at that time the Lord was moved to wrath, and made an oath, saying, 11 Truly, not one of the men of twenty years old and over who came out of Egypt will see the land which I gave by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; because they have not been true to me with all their heart; 12 But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua, the son of Nun: because they have been true to the Lord. 13 Then the Lord was angry with Israel, and he made them wanderers in the waste land for forty years? till all that generation who had done evil in the eyes of the Lord was dead. 14 And now you have come to take the place of your fathers, another generation of sinners, increasing the wrath of the Lord against Israel. 15 For if you are turned away from him, he will send them wandering again in the waste land; and you will be the cause of the destruction of all this people.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Numbers 32:6-15
Commentary on Numbers 32:6-15
(Read Numbers 32:6-15)
The proposal showed disregard to the land of Canaan, distrust of the Lord's promise, and unwillingness to encounter the difficulties and dangers of conquering and driving out the inhabitants of that land. Moses is wroth with them. It will becomes any of God's Israel to sit down unconcerned about the difficult and perilous concerns of their brethren, whether public or personal. He reminds them of the fatal consequences of the unbelief and faint-heartedness of their fathers, when they were, as themselves, just ready to enter Canaan. If men considered as they ought what would be the end of sin, they would be afraid of the beginning of it.