Numbers 20:5

5 Why have you brought us from Egypt to bring us to this bad place? It is not a place of seed or figs or vines or pomegranate trees, and there is not water to drink."

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 quarreled with Moses and spoke, saying, "If only we died when our brothers were dying {before} Yahweh!
4 Why have you brought the assembly of Yahweh, us and our livestock, into this desert to die here?
5 Why have you brought us from Egypt to bring us to this bad place? It is not a place of seed or figs or vines or pomegranate trees, and there is not water to drink."
6 And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of assembly. They fell on their faces, and the glory of Yahweh appeared to them.
7 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

Footnotes 3

Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.