Verse 23. - Be sure your sin will find you out. Or rather, "ye will know your sin" (וּדְעוּ חַטַּאתְכֶם) "which shall find you out" (for מָצָא cf. Genesis 44:16). So in effect the Septuagint: γνώσεσθε τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ὑῶν, ὅταν ὑμᾶς καταλάβῃ τὰ κακά. When they had cause to rue their folly, then they would recognize their sin.

32:16-27 Here is the good effect of plain dealing. Moses, by showing their sin, and the danger of it, brought them to their duty, without murmuring or disputing. All men ought to consider the interests of others as well as their own; the law of love requires us to labour, venture, or suffer for each other as there may be occasion. They propose that their men of war should go ready armed before the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, and that they should not return till the conquest of Canaan was ended. Moses grants their request, but he warns them of the danger of breaking their word. If you fail, you sin against the Lord, and not against your brethren only; God will certainly reckon with you for it. Be sure your sin will find you out. Sin will surely find out the sinner sooner or later. It concerns us now to find our sins out, that we may repent of them, and forsake them, lest they find us out to our ruin.But if ye will not do so,.... As they promised they would, and Moses insisted on it that they should:

behold, ye have sinned against the Lord making such a request, and not fulfilling the conditions on which it was granted:

and be sure your sin will find you out; fly in their faces, accuse them in their consciences, charge and load them with guilt, and bring deserved punishment upon them: sin may be put, as it often is, for the punishment of sin, which sooner or later will find out and come upon the impenitent and unpardoned sinner.