Deu 1:39, Isa 8:4, Jon 4:11 | JFB | STEP | 39. your children . . . who in that day had no knowledge between good and evil —All ancient versions read "to-day" instead of "that day"; and the sense is—"your children who now know," or "who know not as yet good or evil." As the children had not been partakers of the sinful outbreak, they were spared to obtain the privilege which their unbelieving parents had forfeited. God's ways are not as man's ways [ ].

Deuteronomy 1:39

39. your children . . . who in that day had no knowledge between good and evil—All ancient versions read "to-day" instead of "that day"; and the sense is—"your children who now know," or "who know not as yet good or evil." As the children had not been partakers of the sinful outbreak, they were spared to obtain the privilege which their unbelieving parents had forfeited. God's ways are not as man's ways [Isa 55:8, 9].

Isaiah 8:4

4. before, &c.—within a year.

Jonah 4:11

11. that cannot discern between their right hand and their left—children under three of four years old (De 1:39). Six score thousand of these, allowing them to be a fifth of the whole, would give a total population of six hundred thousand.

much cattle—God cares even for the brute creatures, of which man takes little account. These in wonderful powers and in utility are far above the shrub which Jonah is so concerned about. Yet Jonah is reckless as to their destruction and that of innocent children. The abruptness of the close of the book is more strikingly suggestive than if the thought had been followed out in detail.