Numbers 20:5

5 Why did you make us leave Egypt? To bring us to this terrible place without seed, figs, grapevines, pomegranates or even 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 The people quarreled with Moshe and said, "We wish we had died when our brothers died before ADONAI.
4 Why did you bring ADONAI's community into this desert? To die there, we and our livestock?
5 Why did you make us leave Egypt? To bring us to this terrible place without seed, figs, grapevines, pomegranates or even water to drink?"
6 Moshe and Aharon left the assembly, went to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces; and the glory of ADONAI appeared to them.
7 ADONAI said to Moshe,
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.