Numbers 20:5

5 And why did you take us out of Egypt in the first place, dragging us into this miserable country? No grain, no figs, no grapevines, no pomegranates - and now not even any water!"

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 They attacked Moses: "We wish we'd died when the rest of our brothers died before God.

4 Why did you haul this congregation of God out here into this wilderness to die, people and cattle alike?

5 And why did you take us out of Egypt in the first place, dragging us into this miserable country? No grain, no figs, no grapevines, no pomegranates - and now not even any water!"

6 Moses and Aaron walked from the assembled congregation to the Tent of Meeting and threw themselves facedown on the ground. And they saw the Glory of God.

7 God spoke to Moses: