John Calvin on Deuteronomy 1:39-40

39. Moreover, your little ones. I have already shown that God so tempered His judgment that, whilst none of the guilty should escape with impunity, still His faithfulness should remain sure and inviolable, and that the wickedness of men should not make void the covenant which He had made with Abraham. He, therefore, pronounces sentence upon them, that they should never enjoy the inheritance which they had despised: yet declares that He will nevertheless be true in the fulfillment of what He had promised, and will display His mercy towards their children, whom in their despair they had condemned to be a prey to their enemies.

When He limits this grace to their little ones, whose age did not yet allow them to discern between good and evil, He signifies that all who had already arrived at the years of reason, were, from the least to the greatest, accomplices in the crime, since the contagion had spread through the whole body. Surely it was an incredible prodigy, that so great a multitude should be so carried away by diabolical fury, as that nothing should remain unaffected by it, unless perhaps a timely death removed some of the old men rather on account of the vice of others than their own. But, if even a hundredth part of them had been guiltless of the crime, God would have left some survivors.

“To have no knowledge of good and evil,” is equivalent to being unable “to discern between their right hand and their left hand;” by which expression in Jonah, (Jonah 4:11,) God exempts from condemnation those little ones, who have as yet no power of forming a judgment. From hence, however, some have foolishly attempted to prove that infant-children are not defiled by original sin; and that men are involved in no guilt, except such as they have severally contracted by their own voluntary act (arbitrio.) For the question here is not as to the nature of the human race; a distinction is simply made between children and those who have consciously and willfully provoked God’s wrath; whereas the corruption, which is the root (of all evils, Added from Fr. ) although it may not immediately produce its fruit in actual sins, is not “Ne laisse pas d’estre cachee en nous;” Does not cease to lie hid within us. — Fr. therefore non-existent.

Numbers 14

Numbers 14:39-45

39. And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.

39. Loquutus est igitur Moses verba ista omnibus filiis Israel, et luxerunt populus valde.

40. And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised: for we have sinned.

40. Surrexeruntque mane, et ascenderunt in verticem montis, dicendo: Ecce nos, ut ascendamus ad locum de quo loquutus est Jehova: quia peccavimus.

41. And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord? but it shall not prosper.

41. Et dixit Moses, Ut quid transgredimini sermonem Jehovae? Et (vel, quando) hoc non prospere cedet.

42. Go not up, for the Lord is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies.

42. Ne ascendatis: quia non est Jehova in medio vestri: ne percutiamini coram inimicis vestris.

43. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you.

43. Amalec enim et Chananaeus ibi est ante vos, et cadetis gladio. Nam propterea quod aversi estis a sequendo Jehova, neque erit Jehova vobiscum.

44. But they presumed to go up unto the hill-top: nevertheless, the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.

44. Sumpserunt tamen animos ut ascenderent in verticem montis. Area autem foederis Jehovae et Moses non recesserunt e medio castrorum.

45. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.

45. Descendit itaque Amalec et Chananaeus, qui habitabant in monte illo, percusseruntque eos, et contuderunt usque Horma.