Therefore he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness:

Therefore he sware unto them, That he would overthrow them in the wilderness,

And he lifted up his hand over them: to overthrow them in the desert;

And He lifteth up His hand to them, To cause them to fall in a wilderness,

So he made an oath against them, to put an end to them in the waste land:

Therefore He swore concerning them, That He would overthrow them in the wilderness;

And he lifted up. He describes another example of the vengeance of God, the recollection of which ought to have been deeply seated in their hearts, so that cherishing a constant fear of him, they might watch over themselves with the utmost solicitude. No good having ensued from all this, it is obvious that the madness of that people was incurable. At that time God did restrain his anger, in that he did not disperse their offspring throughout various parts of the earth; but his threatening of itself ought to have sufficed for the subduing of their pride, had they not been incorrigible. To lift up the hand is in this passage susceptible of two meanings. In Scripture God is frequently said to lift up his hand to inflict punishment. But as it is generally admitted that the prophet is here speaking of swearing, [1] with this opinion I most readily coincide. The practice of lifting up the hand, as if they would have called God down from heaven, was a solemn usual rite among them, accompanying an oath; and is therefore improperly applied to God, whose sublimity rises above all things, and who, as the apostle says, cannot swear by a greater than himself, (Hebrews 6:13) In employing it, therefore, it must be understood that he borrows it from the common customs which prevail among men. Had not the Holy Land been preserved to the people by the prayers of Moses, awful indeed would their dispersion have been.

Footnotes

1 - The passage refers to the oath which God swore against that people recorded in Numbers 14:21-23. To the same oath there is an allusion in Psalm 95:11. The Chaldee paraphrast has, "He lifted up his hand with an oath."

Therefore he lifted up his hand against them - Numbers 14:27-33. He resolved to cut them off, so that none of them should reach the promised land.
To overthrow them in the wilderness - literally, to cause them to "fall."

Therefore (n) he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness:
(n) That is, he swore. Sometimes also it means to punish.

Therefore he lifted up his hand against them,.... A gesture used in swearing, Genesis 14:22. So the Targum understands it here,
"and he lifted up his hand with an oath, because of them:''
and so it is interpreted by Aben Ezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech; and agrees with Numbers 14:28. The same gesture was used by the Heathens in swearing, as by Latinus (s). Or he lifted up his hand, in a way of judgment, to strike the blow; and which, when it lights on man with the indignation of his anger, falls heavy; see Isaiah 26:11. To overthrow them in the wilderness; as he did all the murmuring generation that came out of Egypt, all but Caleb and Joshua; all from twenty years and upwards, their carcasses fell in the wilderness; there they were wasted, consumed, and died, Numbers 14:32.
(s) "----Tenditque ad sidera dextram--Terram, mare, sidera juro", Virg. Aeneid. 12.

lifted up his hand--or, "swore," the usual form of swearing (compare Numbers 14:30, Margin).

Lifted up - He sware. Of this dreadful and irrevocable oath of God, see Numbers 14:11-12.