Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.”
Parallel Translations
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Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.”
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And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.
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And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.'
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Numbers 20:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Numbers 16:14 Moreover you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We won’t come up.”
- Deuteronomy 8:15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who poured water for you out of the rock of flint;
- Nehemiah 9:21 “Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell.
- Jeremiah 2:2 “Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your weddings; how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
- Jeremiah 2:6 They didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no one passed through, and where no man lived?’
- Ezekiel 20:36 Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” says the Lord Yahweh.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Num 20:5 And wherefore have ye made us to…
Num 20:5 And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it [is] no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither [is] there any water to drink.
Ver. 5. Neither is there any water to drink.] Thirst, a most eager appetite, enrageth their affections, and makes them thus hot with Moses.
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.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And wherefore have ye made us to come up…
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:
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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.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 5. No place of seed — That is, No…
5. No place of seed — That is, No place for sowing seed. We call attention to the fact that in this complaint there is no mention of a lack of pasturage. They murmur because there are no arable lands, and delicious fruits, and abundant waters. Travellers agree in the opinion that before the wilderness was stripped of its trees for making charcoal for Egyptian markets, its numerous ravines were covered with grass. Revelation F.W. Holland, after spending many months in wandering on foot over the Sinaitic Peninsula, says: “It is wonderful how apparent difficulties melt away as one’s acquaintance with the country increases. I see no difficulty in the provision of sufficient pasturage for the flocks and herds if, as I have shown, there are good reasons for supposing the rainfall was in former days larger than it is at present. I have several times’ seen the whole face of the country, especially in the wadies, marvelously changed in appearance by a single shower. A slight increase to the present rainfall would produce an enormous addition to the present amount of pasturage.”
Pomegranates — Recent researches have discovered this fruit on Egyptian sculptures, thus proving that this native of Asia was cultivated in Egypt at a very early date. As its name indicates, it is a “grained apple,” red when ripe, and grows on a bush.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain No place of seed. Septuagint, topov ou ou speiretai…
No place of seed. Septuagint, topov ou ou speiretai . A place where there is no sowing, and therefore no harvest.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain (See Scofield "Num 20:8").
water
(See Scofield "Num 20:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.