Numbers 14:27

14:27 “How long must I bear ¹  with this evil congregation ²  that murmurs against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites that they murmured against me.

Numbers 20:15

20:15 how our ancestors went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time, ³  and the Egyptians treated us and our ancestors badly. ⁴ 

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¹ tn The figure is aposiopesis, or sudden silence. The main verb is deleted from the line, “how long…this evil community.” The intensity of the emotion is the reason for the ellipsis.

² sn It is worth mentioning in passing that this is one of the Rabbinic proof texts for having at least ten men to form a congregation and have prayer. If God called ten men (the bad spies) a “congregation,” then a congregation must have ten men. But here the word “community/congregation” refers in this context to the people of Israel as a whole, not just to the ten spies.

³ tn Heb “many days.”

⁴ tn The verb רָעַע (ra’a’) means “to act or do evil.” Evil here is in the sense of causing pain or trouble. So the causative stem in our passage means “to treat wickedly.”