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. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the Lord had burned among them.
The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. 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 loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil. When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.
Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. 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? 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 ancestors? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”
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. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.
“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. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 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?” ’ ”
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!’ 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?”
The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord ’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
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. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
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. A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
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!” Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. 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. 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. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
From Kibroth Hattaavah the people traveled to Hazeroth and stayed there.
My thoughts -
Sometimes God reminds me of an exasperated parent. God's children are grumbling again. I can relate to that. Do you have children? If so, have you ever taken a long trip with them? Grumbling happens. They may have just eaten, but they're always hungry. Someone is always touching someone else. Something is always not fair.
The Israelites are grumbling about meat. I can relate to God's response. "You want meat? I'll give you so much meat it'll be coming out of your nose! I'll give you so much meat you'll never want to eat meat again!"
I also like the sub-story here with Moses, Joshua, Eldad, and Medad. Moses, rightly so, feels that carrying all of the people's burdens is too much for him. So God gives some of the power of the Spirit to seventy of the elders so that they may share in carrying this burden.
For whatever reason I guess Eldad and Medad missed that memo. I haven't studied this enough to know why they weren't there. Maybe they didn't want to be. Maybe they didn't know they were supposed to. I don't guess it really matters. They weren't there with the others. When God gave the power of the Spirit to the elders they prophesied. Eldad and Medad were still at camp for this.
Now, I would think that if you don't show up for something then you'd just have to miss out on it. Not being familiar with this story and having read a lot of this the last few days I was afraid that they might even be killed in some magnificently horrific way for not being where they were supposed to. But instead, since they were in camp when the prophesying happened, they prophesied in camp.
Joshua may not have realized that Moses really wanted this to happen so he kind of freaked out. These guys were doing Moses's job here. Moses should put a stop to it. That's his thing. Of course Moses, being sick of carrying this burden, responds by saying that he wishes everyone would prophesy.
Is there something that we can learn from this? First, I'd say in the case of the Israelites and the meat you should be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. How many times do we grumble to get our way and find that once we get it it's less a blessing and more a curse? Sometimes we can't see how blessed we are and only see what we don't have. That's no way to be.
As for Moses and the elders, a lot of times we can cling to our responsibilities and not let them go. Moses did not do that. One person can not do everything. This is true even in ministry. Our natural reaction may be more like Joshua's. We see people step up and want to say that it's not their role. But we don't know how God is working. And not even Moses could carry everyone's burdens.
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