Numbers 20:5

5 Why have you made us come out of Egypt into this evil place? This is no place of seed or figs or vines or other fruits, and there is no water for drinking.

Numbers 20:5 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 20:5

And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt
They represent that affair in such a light, as if they were forced out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron against their wills; or at least were overpersuaded by them to do what they had no inclination to, namely, to come out of Egypt; though they were in the utmost bondage and slavery, and their lives were made bitter by it, and they cried by reason of their oppression, and the hardships they endured; but this was all forgot. Aben Ezra says, it is a strange word which is here used, which shows the confusion they were in:

to bring us unto this evil place;
dry and barren, where there were neither food nor drink, as follows:

it is no place of seed;
or fit for sowing, as the Targum of Jonathan, any sort of seed, as wheat, barley, rye, rice

or of figs, or vines, or pomegranates;
it is not a soil fit to plant such trees in, nor would they grow were they planted:

neither is there any water to drink;
for them and their cattle, and therefore must be a miserable place for so large a body of people to subsist in.

Numbers 20:5 In-Context

3 And the people were angry with Moses and said, If only death had overtaken us when our brothers came to their death before the Lord!
4 Why have you taken the Lord's people into this waste, for death to come to us and to our cattle there?
5 Why have you made us come out of Egypt into this evil place? This is no place of seed or figs or vines or other fruits, and there is no water for drinking.
6 Then Moses and Aaron went away from the people to the door of the Tent of meeting; and, falling on their faces there, they saw the glory of the Lord.
7 And the Lord said to Moses,
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.