Numbers 11:15

15 sin aliter tibi videtur obsecro ut interficias me et inveniam gratiam in oculis tuis ne tantis adficiar malis

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 unde mihi carnes ut dem tantae multitudini flent contra me dicentes da nobis carnes ut comedamus
14 non possum solus sustinere omnem hunc populum quia gravis mihi est
15 sin aliter tibi videtur obsecro ut interficias me et inveniam gratiam in oculis tuis ne tantis adficiar malis
16 et dixit Dominus ad Mosen congrega mihi septuaginta viros de senibus Israhel quos tu nosti quod senes populi sint ac magistri et duces eos ad ostium tabernaculi foederis faciesque ibi stare tecum
17 ut descendam et loquar tibi et auferam de spiritu tuo tradamque eis ut sustentent tecum onus populi et non tu solus graveris
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.