Verse 50. - He made a way to his anger; literally, he levelled a way for his anger; i.e. made a smooth path for it (Cheyne). He spared not their soul from death; rather, held not back their soul. But gave their life over to the pestilence. This is, undoubtedly, the true meaning, and not "he gave their beasts over to the murrain." Though no "pestilence" is expressly mentioned in Exodus 12. as having caused the death of the firstborn, yet pestilence may assuredly have been the means employed.
78:40-55. Let not those that receive mercy from God, be thereby made bold to sin, for the mercies they receive will hasten its punishment; yet let not those who are under Divine rebukes for sin, be discouraged from repentance. The Holy One of Israel will do what is most for his own glory, and what is most for their good. Their forgetting former favours, led them to limit God for the future. God made his own people to go forth like sheep; and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd his flock, with all care and tenderness. Thus the true Joshua, even Jesus, brings his church out of the wilderness; but no earthly Canaan, no worldly advantages, should make us forget that the church is in the wilderness while in this world, and that there remaineth a far more glorious rest for the people of God.
He made a way to his anger,.... Or, "for" it, so that nothing could obstruct it, or hinder the execution of it; or "he weighed a path for his anger" (m); he weighed it in the balance of justice, and proportioned his anger to their crimes, and punished them according to their just deserts:
he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; which some understand of their cattle, and of the murrain that came upon them, by which they were destroyed, and which was the fifth plague of Egypt, Exodus 9:3, so the Targum,
"their beasts he delivered unto death;''
but Aben Ezra interprets it of the slaughter of the firstborn, expressed in the following verse; and so others.
he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; which some understand of their cattle, and of the murrain that came upon them, by which they were destroyed, and which was the fifth plague of Egypt, Exodus 9:3, so the Targum,
"their beasts he delivered unto death;''
but Aben Ezra interprets it of the slaughter of the firstborn, expressed in the following verse; and so others.
(m) "ponderavit semitam furori suo", Pagninus, Vatablus; "libravit semitam irae suae", Tigurine version; "iter ad iram suam", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.