Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our animals should die here?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why have you brought Yahweh’s assembly into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals?
- KJV And why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?
- BSB Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?
- NASB Why then have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness, for us and our livestock to die here?
- NLT Why have you brought the congregation of the Lord’s people into this wilderness to die, along with all our livestock?
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
They accused Moses of bringing the Lord's assembly into the wilderness to die with their animals. They blamed their leader for the danger of their thirst.
Overview
By calling Israel 'Yahweh's assembly' while charging Moses with leading them to death, they implicitly accuse God Himself. Their fear blinds them to the Lord who had sustained them for decades. The complaint exposes how unbelief reframes God's faithful guidance as cruelty.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Exod 17:3The people were thirsty for water there; and 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?”
- Ps 106:21They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt,
- 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.
- Exod 14:11–12They said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you treated us this way, to bring us out of Egypt?
- Num 16:13–14Is 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?
- Exod 16:3and 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.”
- Exod 5:21and they said to them, “May Yahweh look at you, and judge, because you have made us a stench to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
- Acts 7:39–40to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,
- Num 11:5We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;
- Num 16:41But on the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed Yahweh’s people!”
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 20:4 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.