Numbers 14:13

13 And Moses said unto Jehovah, Then the Egyptians will hear it; for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;

Numbers 14:13 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:13

And Moses said unto the Lord
In an abrupt manner, as the following words show, his mind being greatly disturbed and distressed by the above threatening,

then the Egyptians shall hear [it];
that the Lord had smitten the Israelites with the pestilence; the Targum of Jonathan interprets it of the children of the Egyptians who were suffocated in the sea:

for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;
they were once sojourners among them, and slaves unto them, and they were delivered from them by the mighty hand of the Lord upon the Egyptians, destroying their firstborn; and therefore when they shall hear that the Israelites were all destroyed at once by a pestilence in the wilderness, it will be a pleasure to them, as follows.

Numbers 14:13 In-Context

11 And Jehovah said unto Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have wrought among them?

12 I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they.

13 And Moses said unto Jehovah, Then the Egyptians will hear it; for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;

14 and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that thou Jehovah art in the midst of this people; for thou Jehovah art seen face to face, and thy cloud standeth over them, and thou goest before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night.

15 Now if thou shalt kill this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,