Numbers 20:5

WEB

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."

KJV

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.

Commentary

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 t hem 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.