Haven't you done enough by taking us away from a land flowing with milk and honey in order to kill us out here in the desert? Do you have to make yourself a dictator as well, someone to rule us?
“The Lord should've killed us back in Egypt!” the Israelites told them. “At least there we could sit down beside stewpots of meat and eat bread until we were full. But you had to bring all of us out here in the desert to starve us all to death!”
But the people were so thirsty for water there that they went on complaining to Moses, saying, “Why did you have to bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us and our children and livestock by thirst?”
“Who put you in charge to judge us?” the man replied. “Are you going to kill me like you did the Egyptian?” Moses became frightened at this, and said to himself, “People know what I've done!”
Years later, the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites were still groaning under their hard labor. Their cries for help because of their hardship reached God.
Aren't you satisfied with feeding in good pasture? Do you have to trample down the rest of the pasture with your feet? Aren't you satisfied to drink the clear water? Do you have to muddy the rest of it with your feet?
You're going to eat it for a whole month until it makes you vomit and it comes out through your nostrils, because you have rejected the Lord who is right here with you, complaining to him by saying, ‘Why on earth did we ever leave Egypt?’”
A group of troublemakers among them had such intense food cravings they affected the Israelites who started crying again, asking “Who's going to get us some meat to eat?
This is the report they gave to Moses: “We went and explored the country you sent us to, and it is definitely very productive, as if it was flowing with milk and honey. Just look at some of its fruit!
Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to get us killed? Our wives and children will be captured and taken away as slaves! Wouldn't we be better off going back to Egypt?”
This was the same Moses that the people had rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ God sent him to be both a ruler and a liberator, by means of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.