Numbers 11:1-35
Fire From the LORD
1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD and the fire died down. 3 So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the LORD had burned among them.
Quail From the LORD
4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
7 The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. 8 The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes. And it tasted like something made with olive oil. 9 When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.
10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.11 He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers? 13 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”
16 The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17 I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.
18 “Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. 19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”
21 But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ 22 Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”
23 The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
24 So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent. 25 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again.
26 However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. 27 A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28 Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” 30 Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
31 Now a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the ground, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. 32 All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. 33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. 34 Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
35 From Kibroth Hattaavah the people traveled to Hazeroth and stayed there.
God had saved His people from Egypt...The Hebrew people had many hardships there...They were slaves...They were forced to work long and hard in Egypt...He had brought down manna or bread from heaven...He provided them with water...They had water, they had food, and they had their new freedom...But most importantly, they were near God...They were in the Presence of God...God had showed them many miracles while in Egypt, to prove that they would be going to the Land of milk and honey...The people had the basic things they needed to get to their new land...Yet, despite all these things about our LORD and His miracles, and giving them what they needed to travel to the Promised Land, they still complained... The LORD grew angry with them, because many had quickly forgot about those things...They now complained of their new hardships...They wanted new desires, new things, and in this particular case (the people wanted) a new and different food...
With God providing, by raining their daily bread, they still complained...They were not giving thanks for all the things that God had just done for them in the very recent past...They were not praising the LORD for the miracles, they got to see, their new found freedom, or their daily bread...They were complaining about the present and what they did not have...They also do not seem to be thinking about their future in a land that will be filled with milk and honey...
This is true today, after all these years, our minds, our thoughts still can get focused on something -and it does not want to get of that fact, or idea...The mind cannot seem to move on from it...The people began to crave other food, and they started wailing about it...They now had it in there minds, if only we had meat to eat...In Egypt the had cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic...Now all they see and eat is manna...They were slaves in Egypt, and now that place and those times, are the Good Old Days...How soon we forget...It is like when our brains and thoughts get focused on something it sometimes will get off it...And misery follows misery, so the more people talking about it, the more the desire for this "if only we had meat to eat" was going to continue and grow the people's misery...Their brains and their thoughts would continue in this pattern, until they changed them or God changed them...It in a sense, the desert wanderers were in a form of negative thinking...They had forgotten the past, their past memories, their current thoughts were being distorted and confusing...God had given them everything they needed, up till now...
When we tend to think like this, either as a person or a nation, it can lead us down the wrong path...This type of thinking can lead us to not only having a bad day, but a bad week, and bad month...Our thoughts and our thinking can lead us in the wrong direction, and we can lose focus on God...We need often to focus on what we have, more than what we do not have...
With the hard life of slavery gone, the people were comfortably settling in for their trip across the desert...They were tired, probably from the heat of the day, and did not know what dangers they would encounter along the way...Moses ask the LORD why had He brought all this trouble on him, a servant of the LORD...God had Moses meet with seventy of the elders and to have them consecrated, so tomorrow they would have meat...The Holy Spirit was with the elders...And God was still angry at them for wanting and talking about going back to Egypt...But the next day He provided them with many, many quail to eat...But He gave some of the Israeli people the plague, after He kept His promise of bringing meat with their daily bread...There is a power in the mind for lust, pleasures, and desires that are only temporary...No doubt the new quail would become over time sometime old, and they would be looking for some new desire and want...These desires after satisfied can be short indeed...
Jesus teaches us the eternities...The eternal life, and about our soul...Let us seek His word, and His teachings...They never wear out...His water once drank, you will never thirst again (John 4:14)...Let us start each day thanking God for what we have, and not what we don't have...Let us keep our minds and thoughts free of the kind of thinking that can take us down the wrong paths of life...Let us make and keep God and His Son a positive force in our lives every day...