If this is how you intend to treat me, just go ahead and kill me. Do me a favor and spare me this misery!”
Parallel translations
- WEB If you treat me this way, please kill me right now, if I have found favor in your sight; and don’t let me see my wretchedness.”
- KJV And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.
- BSB If this is how You are going to treat me, please kill me right now—if I have found favor in Your eyes—and let me not see my own wretchedness.”
- NKJV If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now—if I have found favor in Your sight—and do not let me see my wretchedness!”
- NASB So if You are going to deal with me this way, please kill me now, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my misery.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
In anguish Moses asks God to take his life rather than face such misery. His despair shows the real cost of faithful service.
Overview
Moses would rather die than continue bearing the people alone. Like Elijah and Jonah, a faithful servant reaches the depths of discouragement. God does not rebuke him but answers with mercy and practical help, showing tender care for his exhausted servants.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Jonah 4:3Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”
- 1 Kgs 19:4But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”
- Jonah 4:8–9When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
- Jer 20:18Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
- Phil 1:20–24according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death.
- Zeph 3:15Yahweh has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The King of Israel, Yahweh, is among you. You will not be afraid of evil any more.
- Exod 32:32Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin — and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.”
- Job 7:15so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.
- Job 6:8–10“Oh that I might have my request, that God would grant the thing that I long for,
- Jer 15:18Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?
- Job 3:20–22“Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,
- Jas 1:4Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 11:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.