Numbers 20:5

5 quare nos fecistis ascendere de Aegypto et adduxistis in locum istum pessimum qui seri non potest qui nec ficum gignit nec vineas nec mala granata insuper et aquam non habet ad bibendum

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 et versi in seditionem dixerunt utinam perissemus inter fratres nostros coram Domino

4 cur eduxistis ecclesiam Domini in solitudinem ut et nos et nostra iumenta moriantur

5 quare nos fecistis ascendere de Aegypto et adduxistis in locum istum pessimum qui seri non potest qui nec ficum gignit nec vineas nec mala granata insuper et aquam non habet ad bibendum

6 ingressusque Moses et Aaron dimissa multitudine tabernaculum foederis corruerunt proni in terram et apparuit gloria Domini super eos

7 locutusque est Dominus ad Mosen dicens