Numbers 14:13

13 But Moses said to God, "The Egyptians are going to hear about this! You delivered this people from Egypt with a great show of strength, and now this?

Numbers 14:13 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:13

And Moses said unto the Lord
In an abrupt manner, as the following words show, his mind being greatly disturbed and distressed by the above threatening,

then the Egyptians shall hear [it];
that the Lord had smitten the Israelites with the pestilence; the Targum of Jonathan interprets it of the children of the Egyptians who were suffocated in the sea:

for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;
they were once sojourners among them, and slaves unto them, and they were delivered from them by the mighty hand of the Lord upon the Egyptians, destroying their firstborn; and therefore when they shall hear that the Israelites were all destroyed at once by a pestilence in the wilderness, it will be a pleasure to them, as follows.

Numbers 14:13 In-Context

11 God said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me like dirt? How long refuse to trust me? And with all these signs I've done among them!

12 I've had enough - I'm going to hit them with a plague and kill them. But I'll make you into a nation bigger and stronger than they ever were."

13 But Moses said to God, "The Egyptians are going to hear about this! You delivered this people from Egypt with a great show of strength, and now this?

14 The Egyptians will tell everyone. They've already heard that you are God, that you are on the side of this people, that you are present among them, that they see you with their own eyes in your Cloud that hovers over them, in the Pillar of Cloud that leads them by day and the Pillar of Fire at night.

15 If you kill this entire people in one stroke, all the nations that have heard what has been going on will say,