Deuteronomy 1:41

We have sinned against the Lord Sam. and LXX add our God: cp. JE, Numbers 14:40 b, we have sinned.

we will go up and fight we, we Will go up, etc. We ourselves, the doomed generation, and not leave the advance to our children. JE, Behold us, we will go up.

and were forward to go up deemed it a light thing to go up (R.V. marg.). The verb (tahînu) does not occur elsewhere in the O.T. and ancient translators gave it various meanings. In Ar. the same root is -to be slight" or -light" (see on Deuteronomy 1:43); the causative Heb. form is best rendered made light of. This quick revulsion of popular feeling is true to life and admirably depicted. The change was too facile to be real. It is remarkable how alike Hosea and the authors of D are in their attitude to such ethical phenomena. As Hosea declares of his generation (Deuteronomy 1:15 ff.), so the generation of Moses does not appreciate how deep is its evil disposition; and, therefore, its repentance is futile. Mere enthusiasm is no atonement for guilt. Men cannot run away from their moral unworthiness on bursts of feeling. The next verse tells that God rejected the light-minded offer; and the truth underlies both verses that He did not do so arbitrarily. Lack of the sense of the seriousness of obedience, of the difficulty of doing God's will, of the agony which Christ supremely felt, is as great a sin as the refusal to obey. Both are equally proof of unworthiness to work with God. He can do nothing with such shallow natures.