Komentarz do Liczb 14:2

לו מתנו means WOULD THAT WE HAD DIED.

וילונו על משה ועל אהרן; who were G’d’s delegates charged with taking them out of Egypt and with saving them from fear of death in the desert; they claimed that all that Moses and Aaron had done was only in order to deliver the people into the hands of the Emorite.

וילונו על משה ואהרון, They murmured against Moses and Aaron, etc. The reason why the Torah repeats the fact that the entire people joined in that murmuring, once referring to them as "all the children of Israel," and once as "the entire community," is to make a distinction between the two requests the people voiced. The entire people of Israel were complaining; however the nature of the complaint was voiced against Moses by the people who represented the community. These people told Moses that their first choice of evil would have been to die in Egypt before the Exodus rather than be faced with death now after a futile march through the desert. Seeing that they did not have this choice having already left Egypt, the next worse fate they could wish for was to die a natural death in the desert. This was at least a viable option. They complained why G'd apparently had chosen to let them die an even worse death, i.e. at the hands of the Canaanites when they would attempt to dispossess them. In that event their wives would be taken prisoner, their children would become loot, etc. The words הלא טוב לנו mean: "would we not be better off to die in Egypt peacefully after G'd would bring us back there?" They would be prepared to return to Egypt in order not to die in battle and for their families to become prisoners? After all, it was possible that the Egyptians would not kill them when they returned there. At any rate, they did not mind that G'd would decree that they should die a normal death in the desert rather than that they would fall in battle for an objective they could not hope to achieve.

ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא, “The people spent that night weeping.” The spies had returned to their respective tents in the evening after having made their report to Moses, and on the following morning the people voiced their complaints against Moses and Aaron en masse. Moses referred to that fateful night in Deuteronomy 1,27 when he reminded the people with the words ותרגנו באהליכם, “you slandered in your tents.” Compare Proverbs 18,8 where דברי נרגן, are mentioned by Solomon in that context. [See Alshich’s commentary on that verse. Ed.]

Would that we had died. Meaning that it is not in the sense of “if” as in “would that I had a sword in my hand” (Bamidbar 22:29) and “would that they were wise” (Devarim 32:29). Rashi uses the word הלואי which has the sense of “would that…” It takes a vav afterwards similar to “מי יתן והיה לבבם” (would that it was in their hearts” (Devarim 5:26), therefore Rashi needed to add in the vav — הלואי ומתנו as if it had read “would that we had died.”

V. 2. וילנו וגו׳. Das Murren war allgemein, direkt mit Anklagen treten alle die stimmberechtigte "Gemeinde" bildenden Männer an Mosche und Aharon hinan.

Would we had died. We have already explained that the main complaint was to say that out of Hashem’s hatred for this generation He wanted to kill them in the Land of Canaan. They thought the reason for this hatred was either because they worshipped idols in Egypt or because of the Sin of the Golden Calf. This is why they cried: Would we have died in Egypt, or in this desert because of the Golden Calf.