Your fathers - The generation of the Exodus was now substantially extinct. Compare Numbers 26:64-65.

Kadesh-barnea - See Numbers 13:26.

Thus did your fathers,.... Meaning not particularly and only the fathers of these two tribes he was speaking to, but of them and the other tribes also, who acted much such a part; did not choose to go into the good land to possess it, when they were bid to do it, but were for sending spies first, which brought an ill report of it, and discouraged the people from going into it; the history of which Moses here gives:

when I sent them from Kadeshbarnea to see the land; called only Kadesh, Numbers 13:26 the reason of the name See Gill on Numbers 32:13.

Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadeshbarnea to see the land.

32:6-15 The proposal showed disregard to the land of Canaan, distrust of the Lord's promise, and unwillingness to encounter the difficulties and dangers of conquering and driving out the inhabitants of that land. Moses is wroth with them. It will becomes any of God's Israel to sit down unconcerned about the difficult and perilous concerns of their brethren, whether public or personal. He reminds them of the fatal consequences of the unbelief and faint-heartedness of their fathers, when they were, as themselves, just ready to enter Canaan. If men considered as they ought what would be the end of sin, they would be afraid of the beginning of it.