Numbers 14:13

13 And Moses said to Yahweh, "Then the Egyptians will hear that you brought up this people from their midst in your power,

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 Yahweh said to Moses, "How long until this people will despise me, and how long until they will not believe in me, [and] in all the signs that I have done in their midst?

12 I will strike them with disease, and I will dispossess them; I will make you into a greater and stronger nation than them."

13 And Moses said to Yahweh, "Then the Egyptians will hear that you brought up this people from their midst in your power,

14 and they will {tell it} to the inhabitants of this land. They heard that you, Yahweh, [are] in the midst of this people, that you are seen eye to eye, and your cloud [is] standing over them, and in a column of cloud you go before them by day and in a column of fire [at] night.

15 But if you destroy this people {all at once}, the nations that will have heard your message will say,

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew "his"