Numbers 14:15

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

Numbers 14:15 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 14:15

Now [if] thou shall kill [all] this people, as one man
Suddenly, and at once, as might be done by a pestilence; and as 185,000 were smitten at once, and as thought by the same disease, by the Angel of the Lord in the camp of the Assyrians, in later times, ( 2 Kings 19:35 ) ;

then the nations which have heard the fame of thee;
the Egyptians, Canaanites, and others, as Aben Ezra observes; who had heard the report of the wonderful things done by him for Israel, and of the great favours he had bestowed upon them, and so of his power, and goodness, and other perfections displayed therein, which made him appear to be preferable to all the gods of the Gentiles:

will speak, saying;
as follows.

Numbers 14:15 In-Context

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,

16 'Since God couldn't get these people into the land which he had promised to give them, he slaughtered them out in the wilderness.'

17 "Now, please, let the power of the Master expand, enlarge itself greatly, along the lines you have laid out earlier when you said,