which is taken almost verbally from Num 14:4 : “They said one to another, Let us make a captain (ראשׁ נתּנה), and return to Egypt;” the notion being merely enhanced here by the addition לעבדתם, to their bondage. The comparison with Num 14:4 also shows that בּמרים is a clerical error for בּמצרים, as the lxx read; for בּמרים, in their stubbornness, after לעבדתם, gives no appropriate sense. In spite, however, of their stiff-neckedness, God of His mercy and goodness did not forsake them. סליחות אלוהּ, a God of pardons; comp. Dan 9:9; Psa 130:4. וגו ורחוּם חנּוּן is a reminiscence of Exo 34:6. The ו before חסד came into the text by a clerical error.
Verses 18-21
Neh 9:18-21 “Yea, they even made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy god that brought thee up out of Egypt, and wrought great provocations. Neh 9:19 Yet Thou, in Thy manifold mercies, didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them, and the pillar of fire by night to show them light in the way wherein they should go. Neh 9:20 Thou gavest also Thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not Thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst: Neh 9:21 And forty years didst Thou sustain them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.” כּי אף, also (even this) = yea even. On the worship of the golden calf, see Exo 24:4. The words ”they did (wrought) great provocations” involve a condemnation of the worship of the molten calf; nevertheless God did not withdraw His gracious presence, but continued to lead them by the pillar of cloud and fire. The passage Num 14:14, according to which the pillar of cloud and fire guided the march of the people through the wilderness after the departure from Sinai, i.e., after their transgression in the matter of the calf, is here alluded to. הענן עמּוּד is rhetorically enhanced by את: and with respect to the cloudy pillar, it departed not; so, too, in the second clause, האשׁ את־עמּוּד; comp. Ewald, §277, d. The words, Neh 9:20, “Thou gavest Thy good Spirit,” etc., refer to the occurrence, Num 11:17, Num 11:25, where God endowed the seventy elders with the spirit of prophecy for the confirmation
