Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us?
Parallel Translations
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Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us?
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Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?
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is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but thou must needs make thyself also a prince over us?
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Numbers 16:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Acts 7:35 “This Moses, whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
- Exodus 2:14 He said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you plan to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was afraid, and said, “Surely this thing is known.”
- Exodus 16:3 and the children of Israel said to them, “We wish that we had died by Yahweh’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
- Numbers 11:5 We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;
- Exodus 1:11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.
- Exodus 1:22 Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”
- Exodus 2:23 In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
- Exodus 17:3 The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”
- Numbers 14:2 All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!
- Numbers 20:3-4 The people quarreled with Moses, and spoke, saying, “We wish that we had died when our brothers died before Yahweh! Why have you brought Yahweh’s assembly into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals?
- Psalms 2:2-3 The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh, and against his Anointed, saying, “Let’s break their bonds apart, and cast their cords from us.”
- Luke 19:14 But his citizens hated him, and sent an envoy after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this man to reign over us.’
- Acts 7:25-27 He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand. “The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Thus they spake contemptuously, preferring Egypt to Canaan.
Thus they spake contemptuously, preferring Egypt to Canaan.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Num 16:13 [Is it] a small thing that thou…
Num 16:13 [Is it] a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?
Ver. 13. That floweth with milk and honey.] So they falsely and maliciously speak of the land of Egypt, in derision of the land of Canaan, whereunto that praise properly belonged. Those that were born in hell know no other heaven.
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Altogether a prince over us.] So their quarrel was against Moses’ principality, though they pretended the priesthood only at first. If the ministry once be taken away, let the magistrate see to himself; he is next.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain i.e. Out of Egypt, a place indeed of great…
i.e. Out of Egypt, a place indeed of great plenty, but to them a place of torment and intolerable slavery. They invidiously and scoffmgly use the same words wherewith God by Moses commended the land of Canaan.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Is it a small thing that thou hast brought…
Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey?.... Meaning Egypt, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it; which, though a plentiful country, never had, nor deserved to have this epithet given it, which is peculiar to the land of Canaan, and is here given, in opposition to the description of that land, which the Lord himself had so described; and argues great impudence and want of reverence of the divine Being, as well as great ingratitude to Moses, the instrument of their being brought out of Egypt, where they laboured under bondage and servitude intolerable; and yet here represent it as an injury done to them, and as if the intent and design of it was purely to destroy them: for they add:
to kill us in the wilderness; with want of food, of which they had plenty in Egypt, they suggest; referring, it may be, to what the Lord by Moses had said to them, that their carcasses should fall in the wilderness; but that would not be for want of provisions, but because of their sins. It was bad enough, they intimate, to be brought out of such a plentiful country, into a barren wilderness; but what was still worse, the despotic and tyrannical government of Moses, as they represent it, they were brought under:
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except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us? ruling in an arbitrary way, making laws, and setting up offices and officers at pleasure, so that it is more eligible to be in bondage in Egypt than under thy government. Aben Ezra takes their meaning to be, as if the end of bringing them out of Egypt was to assume and exercise such rule and authority over them. His words are,"hast thou brought us up out of Egypt, that thou mayest exercise dominion over us as a prince, yea, many dominions, thou and thy brother?''and who also observes, that Egypt lay to the south of the land of Israel, so that one that came from Egypt to the land of Canaan may be truly said to come up, that part of Canaan lying higher than Egypt.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain With perverse contempt for the promises, Dathan and Abiram…
With perverse contempt for the promises, Dathan and Abiram designate Egypt by the terms appropriated elsewhere to the land of Canaan.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 13. out of a land flowing with milk and…
13. out of a land flowing with milk and honey] The expression which Moses had applied to Canaan in persuading the people to escape from slavery (Exo_3:17) is applied by the rebels ironically to Egypt.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (13) A land that floweth with milk and honey.—The…
(13) A land that floweth with milk and honey.—The description of the land of promise is here applied perversely and ironically to the land of Egypt.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Is it a small thing. Rather, "is it too…
Is it a small thing. Rather, "is it too little," as in verse 9. A land that floweth with milk and honey. A description applying by right to the land of promise, (Exo_3:8 Num_13:27) which they in their studied insolence applied to Egypt. Except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us. Literally, "that (yKi) thou altogether lord it over us." The expression is strengthened in the original by the reduplication of the verb in the inf. abs., rrTchiA
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 16:13 land flowing with milk and honey: This sarcastic…
16:13 land flowing with milk and honey: This sarcastic allusion to the spies’ earlier description of Canaan (13:27) is a deliberate distortion of life in Egypt (see study note on 11:4-15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.