(21) The children rebelled.--The history of the wanderings in the wilderness, given in Exodus and Numbers, offers abundant illustrations of the truth of this and the following verse.

20:10-26. The history of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the new Testament as well as in the Old, for warning. God did great things for them. He gave them the law, and revived the ancient keeping of the sabbath day. Sabbaths are privileges; they are signs of our being his people. If we do the duty of the day, we shall find, to our comfort, it is the Lord that makes us holy, that is, truly happy, here; and prepares us to be happy, that is, perfectly holy, hereafter. The Israelites rebelled, and were left to the judgments they brought upon themselves. God sometimes makes sin to be its own punishment, yet he is not the Author of sin: there needs no more to make men miserable, than to give them up to their own evil desires and passions.Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me,.... After the death of their fathers, when they were come into the plains of Moab, and just going to enter the land; they rebelled against the Lord, and greatly provoked him, by joining themselves to Baalpeor, the idol of Moab, they worshipped, Numbers 25:3;

they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them; they did as their fathers before them; though they saw with their eyes the judgments of God upon them, yet this did not deter them from following their evil ways:

which if a man do, he shall even live in them; See Gill on Ezekiel 20:13;

they polluted my sabbaths; just as their fathers had done, taking no warning by them, and what befell them:

then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish mine anger against them in the wilderness; twenty and four thousand died on account of the idolatry of Baalpeor, Numbers 25:9.