You murmured in your tents: this was a rather passive revolt, not an active one in which people left their tents and hurled angry accusations against Moses. Instead of murmured the translation should be “grumbled” or “complained.” A translation should be careful to use an appropriate word for a dwelling that can be taken down and carried (tents), not a permanent construction (“houses” or “homes”). Something like “You stayed in your tents and grumbled” (Contemporary English Version) is a good model.

And said: the complaints were the exact opposite of the truth. It was out of love and compassion that Yahweh had delivered the Israelites from Egypt, the land of slavery, and he had promised to be with them and to assure them success as they took possession of the land of Canaan (see, for instance, 4.37-38). But they accused God of hating them and of bringing them out of Egypt in order to exterminate them.

Hate in certain languages is expressed as “being enemies of,” so in this context we may say “The LORD [or, Yahweh] must consider us his enemies,” or “In Yahweh’s sight we must be his enemies.”

To give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us: the phrase “the hand of the Amorites” means that the Amorites would do the killing; God would allow the Israelites to be captured and killed by the Amorites. It is important to translate the whole statement in such a way that the clear subject of the verb “destroy” or “kill” is Yahweh, not the Amorites (as in Good News Translation). New Jerusalem Bible has “… and so destroy us” (with Yahweh as the subject). An alternative model is:

• “… he brought us out of Egypt, just so he could give us over to the Amorites, and in that way destroy us.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .