I knew you in the wilderness, In the land of great drought.
In the first clause, he shows that they had done very wickedly in retaking themselves to various devices after the light of the gospel had been offered to them: but he increases their sin by the next clause, when he says, ‘Rather after ye are known by him;’ as though he said, “God has anticipated you by his gratuitous goodness. Since, then, God has thus first known you, and first favoured you with his grace, how great and how shameful is now your ingratitude in not seeking to know him in return?” We now then see why the Prophet added that the Israelites had been known by God in the desert, in the land of droughts 