Numbers 20:5

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹In the first month, the whole congregation of Israel entered the Wilderness of Zin and stayed in Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. ²Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered against Moses and Aaron. ³The people quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had perished when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! ⁴Why have you brought the LORD's assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? ⁵Why have you led us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates-and there is no water to drink!"⁶Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. ⁷And the LORD said to Moses, ⁸"Take the staff and assemble the congregation. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will pour out its water. You will bring out water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock." ⁹So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as He had commanded. ¹⁰Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, "Listen now, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

this evil: Numbers 16:14, Deuteronomy 8:15, Nehemiah 9:21, Jeremiah 2:2, Jeremiah 2:6, Ezekiel 20:36

no place of: i.e. "no place for sowing

Reciprocal: Joshua 7:7 - to deliver

Cross-References

Joshua 22:22
"The LORD, the Mighty One, is God! The LORD, the Mighty One, is God! He knows, and may Israel also know. If this was in rebellion or breach of faith against the LORD, do not spare us today.

1 Kings 9:4
And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,

2 Kings 20:3
"Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what is good in Your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

1 Chronicles 29:17
I know, my God, that You test the heart and delight in uprightness. All these things I have given willingly and with an upright heart, and now I have seen Your people who are present here giving joyfully and willingly to You.

Job 33:9
'I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, with no iniquity in me.

Psalms 7:8
The LORD judges the peoples; vindicate me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and integrity.

Psalms 24:4
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear deceitfully.

Psalms 25:21
May integrity and uprightness preserve me, because I wait for You.

Psalms 26:6
I wash my hands in innocence that I may go about Your altar, O LORD,

Psalms 73:13
Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure; in innocence I have washed my hands.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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, c.

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The language of the murmurers is noteworthy. It has the air of a traditional remonstrance handed down from the last generation. Compare marginal references.