Deuteronomy 1:41

"Then ye answered and said unto me, We have sinned against Jehovah, we will go up and fight, according to all that Jehovah our God commanded us. And ye girded on every man his weapons of war, and were forward to go up into the hill-country. And Jehovah said unto me, Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight, for I am not among you; lest ye be smitten before your enemies. So I spake unto you, and ye hearkened not; but ye rebelled against the commandment of Jehovah, and were presumptuous, and went up into the hill-country. And the Amorites that dwelt in that hill-country, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even unto Hormah. And ye returned and wept before Jehovah; but Jehovah hearkened not to you voice, nor gave ear unto you. So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode there."

The repeated rebellions of that generation at last reached a crisis, the crisis that Moses recalled in this paragraph. No superficial show of repentance could restore the loss of confidence that God might once have had in the people. They had failed the Lord far too often for the maneuver which Israel here suggested to restore their status in the eyes of God. They said, "We have sinned, and now we will fight." Would they then obey the Lord? Certainly not! God commanded them NOT to go, but they presumed to go anyway!

The weeping of the nation here is extremely pathetic. The love and forgiveness of the Father which had so often been available to them in the past was now no longer available. They had passed the point of no return. There would be nothing else for that generation except the burning memories of what might have been if they had obeyed the Lord. There is something here for every man to ponder; for we cannot suppose that what happened to Israel here was in any manner different to what happens to any man who trifles with the love and forgiveness of the Lord.

As already noted, Moses could have had only one motive in this rehearsal of the dreadful history of Israel which had ended in such a tragedy for the whole people, and that was to emphasize the truth that they had brought it all upon themselves by their intolerable behavior.