I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them: but thee I will make a ruler over a great nation, and a mightier than this is.

I will smite them with the pestilence, and destroy them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they.

I smite it with pestilence, and dispossess it, and make thee become a nation greater and mightier than it.'

I will send disease on them for their destruction, and take away their heritage, and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

Therefore, I will strike them with a pestilence, and so I will consume them. But you I will make the ruler over a great nation, and one which is mightier than this one."

Percutiam cum peste, expellamque eum: te autem faciam in gentem magnam et robustiorem eo.

And disinherit them - By the proposed extinction of Israel the blessings of the covenant would revert to their original donor.

I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them,.... Deprive them of inhabiting the land; so as many as died of the pestilence were even all the spies who brought an evil report of the good land, Numbers 14:37; with respect to the body of the people, this is to be considered not as a peremptory decree or a determined point; but is delivered partly by way of proposal to Moses, to draw out from him what he would say to it; and partly by way of threatening to the people, to bring them to a sense of their sin and repentance for it:
and will make of thee a greater nation, and mightier than they: this anticipates an objection that might be made, should the people of Israel be cut off by the plague, and so disinherited of the land of Canaan, what will become of the oath of God made to their fathers? to which the answer is, it would be fulfilled in making the posterity of Moses as great or a greater and more powerful nation than Israel now was, and by introducing them into the land of Canaan, who would be of the seed of the fathers of Israel, as Jarchi observes, as those people were; and this was said to prove Moses, and try his affection to the people of Israel; and give him an opportunity of showing his public and disinterested spirit.

the Lord said, . . . I will smite them with the pestilence--not a final decree, but a threatening, suspended, as appeared from the issue, on the intercession of Moses and the repentance of Israel.

I will smite them - This was not an absolute determination, but a commination, like that of Nineveh's destruction, with a condition implied, except there be speedy repentance, or powerful intercession.