Numbers 14:33,34

Each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities.

God often punishes sin proportionably

God oftentimes punisheth in proportion, so that the judgment is answerable to the sin. Of what kind the sin is, of the same kind is the punishment (Genesis 42:21). God sent upon Sodom a punishment like to the nature of their sin; they burned in unclean and unnatural lust one toward another, and the Lord sent fire from heaven to burn them up.

1. God hath many ways to punish sin, yet it pleaseth Him to send His punishments according to our sins, thereby to strike us with inward remorse and to work a deeper impression in the conscience. For when He punisheth after this manner rather than after any other, the judgment itself doth more effectually force the sufferer to acknowledge God’s justice in plaguing of Him in that sort.

2. This maketh men not only to justify God, whose, judgments are always just, but maketh them also to judge themselves, and thereby they oftentimes prevent the more heavy judgments of God.

3. God hath given a law, and by the law He requireth a proportionable punishment for sin (Leviticus 24:19). This course will the Lord take (who is the supreme Magistrate) so often as it pleaseth Him, albeit He do not tie Himself to that law.

Uses:

1. This serveth to warrant us that we may lawfully expect judgment from God in proportion upon men for their sins. For the which hath been, may be; and that which the Lord hath done, He will certainly do it again, so that we may promise and persuade ourselves that they shall in the end be paid home to the full, with due proportion of punishment according to their sins.

2. Whensoever we remain under any judgment of God’s hand, let us labour for spiritual wisdom, that we may discern what the sin is which is the cause thereof. For by the manner of the judgment we may oftentimes find out the manner of our sin. This way we shall make the punishment profitable unto us, if we take it and lay it unto the sin, as it were a salve upon the sore. It will work in us a care to “judge ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:31).

3. As God dealeth with men in regard to their sins, so He dealeth oftentimes with His children in good things and for good things. He will reward according to our deeds, blessing with the same blessing, and mercy with the same mercy (2 Timothy 1:18). (W. Attersoll.)