Numbers 11:15

15 "1So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness."

Numbers 11:15 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 11:15

And if thou deal thus with me
Let the whole weight of government lie upon me, and leave the alone to bear it:

kill me, I pray thee, out of hand;
take me out of the world at once, or "kill me now, in killing" F14; dispatch me immediately, and make a thorough end of me directly:

if I have found favour in thy sight;
if thou hast any love for me, or art willing to show me a kindness, to remove me by death, I shall take as one:

and let me not see my wretchedness;
or live to be the unhappy man I shall be; pressed with such a weight of government, affected and afflicted with the wants of a people I cannot relieve, or seeing them bore down with judgments and punishments inflicted on them for their sins and transgressions I am not able to prevail upon them to abstain from: so the Targum of Jerusalem,

``that I may not see their evil, who are thy people;''

so Abendana, and in the margin of some Hebrew copies, it is read,

``this is one of the eighteen words, the correction of the scribes;''

who, instead of "my wretchedness" or evil, corrected it, "their wretchedness" or evil; but Aben Ezra says there is no need of this correction.


FOOTNOTES:

F14 (grh an yngrh) "occide me nunc occidendo", Drusius; "occide me jam, occide", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Numbers 11:15 In-Context

13 "Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, 'Give us meat that we may eat!'
14 "I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me.
15 "So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness."
16 The LORD therefore said to Moses, "Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you.
17 "Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not bear it all alone.

Cross References 1

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