Numbers 14:2

2 All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron,^[a] and the whole community told them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!

Numbers 14:2 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:2

And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses, and
against Aaron
They being the instruments of bringing them out of Egypt, and conducting them hither:

and the whole congregation said unto them;
some of them, the rest assenting to it by their cries and tears and gestures;

would God we had died in the land of Egypt;
and then what they left behind they thought might have come into the hands of their children or relations; but now they concluded it would become a prey to the Canaanites:

or would God we had died in this wilderness;
the wilderness of Paran, at Taberah, where many of them had been destroyed by fire, ( Numbers 11:1-3 ) , and now they wish they had perished with them.

Numbers 14:2 In-Context

1 Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night.

2 All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!

3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and little children will become plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?"

4 So they said to one another, "Let's appoint a leader and go back to Egypt."

5 Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces [to the ground] in front of the whole assembly of the Israelite community.

Footnotes

• [a]. Nm 14:27; 16:11,41; Ex 16:2,7-8; 17:3