John Gill Commentary Numbers 11:15

"And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness." — Numbers 11:15 (ASV)

And if you deal thus with me
Let the whole weight of government lie upon me, and leave you alone to bear it:

kill me, I pray you, out of hand ;
take me out of the world at once, or "kill me now, in killing" ^F14 ; dispatch me immediately, and make a thorough end of me directly:

if I have found favour in your sight ;
if you have any love for me, or are willing to show me a kindness, to remove me by death, I shall take as one:

and let me not see my wretchedness ;
or live to be the unhappy man I shall be; pressed with such a weight of government, affected and afflicted with the wants of a people I cannot relieve, or seeing them bore down with judgments and punishments inflicted on them for their sins and transgressions I am not able to prevail upon them to abstain from: so the Targum of Jerusalem, ``that I may not see their evil, who are your people;'' so Abendana, and in the margin of some Hebrew copies, it is read, ``this is one of the eighteen words, the correction of the scribes;'' who, instead of "my wretchedness" or evil, corrected it, "their wretchedness" or evil; but Aben Ezra says there is no need of this correction.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F14: (grh an yngrh) "occide me nunc occidendo", Drusius; "occide me jam, occide", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.