Complaints of the People

(Book of Numbers 11:1 - 11:35)
The people complained of their hardships.  Jehovah heard all their grumblings and was so angered that he sent down a fire that consumed the outskirts of their camp.  The people cried for help to Moses. He prayed to Jehovah, and the fire then died down.  (This place was thus named Taberah, since it was there that the fire of Jehovah raged against them.)

The motley riffraff who were traveling with the Israelites had cravings for regular food.  The Israelites, too, began moaning and griping again, "If only we had some meat to eat!  We remember the fish we used to get for free in Egypt.  And the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic, we used to have all we wanted.  Now we have lost our appetites.  All we have to look at is this manna!"  (Manna was like small coriander seeds, only an amber color like gum resin.  People went around and collected it off the ground.  It was ground in mills or beaten with mortars, then boiled in a pot or baked into flat cakes.  It tasted like wheat cooked in olive oil.  When, during the night, the dew would fall upon the camp, the manna would fall as well.)

From the openings in their tents, Moses could hear every family weeping and wailing.  Jehovah was outraged and angry, and Moses was perturbed as well.  Moses asked Jehovah, "Why have you so ill used your servant?  What have I done to so displease you that you burden me with the responsibility for all these people?  Did I conceive all these people or give them birth that you tell me that I must carry them in my arms, like a nurse carries a baby, to the land that you vowed to give to their ancestors?  Where can I find meat for these people?  They keep whining and demanding, 'Give us meat to eat!'  I just can't carry all these people by myself.  The burden is too heavy for me.  If this is how I'm to be treated, just kill me now.  If I’m still in your favor, then do so and spare me this misery."

In response Jehovah told Moses, "Summon to me 70 elders of Israel, those known by you to be leaders and officers of the people.  Bring them into the Tabernacle where they may stand beside you.  I will come down and speak to you there.  I will remove some of my spiritual essence from you and give it to them so that they may share some of the burden of taking care of the people.  You won't have to bear it all yourself.  And you may tell the people to consecrate themselves for tomorrow and tell them that they will eat meat.  Jehovah has heard your complaints, 'If we only had meat to eat.  We were surely better off in Egypt!'  Well, Jehovah will give you meat and meat you will eat.  You’ll not eat it for just a day, or two days or five, or even ten or twenty days, but for an entire month until you’re stuffed and are sick of it.  For you have defied Jehovah to his face, crying and asking, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?'"

But Moses pointed out, "Here I have 600,000 men on foot and you say, 'I will give them meat to eat for a full month.'  If all the flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would it be enough?  If all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would it suffice?"

"Is my power limited?"  Jehovah asked Moses.  "Now you will see whether or not I can make good on my word to your people."

Moses went out to see the people and told them what Jehovah had said.  He gathered together the 70 elders and had them line up round the Tabernacle Sanctum.  Jehovah descended in a cloud and addressed himself to them.  He imparted to the 70 elders some of the spiritual essence that he had bestowed upon Moses.  When this occurred, they began to prophesy.  (This, though, would never happen again.) 

Two men, Eldad and Medad, by name,  had stayed behind in camp, though they were listed among the elders.  Even so, the spirit possessed them.  Not having gone to the Tabernacle, they began prophesying in camp.   A young man ran and reported to Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in camp!"  Joshua son of Nun, who, since his youth, had been an aide of Moses, spoke up, "My master, Moses, you must stop them!"

Moses, though, told him, "Are you jealous of them for my sake?  Would that all the people of Jehovah were prophets and that Jehovah would entrust them with his spirit."

Moses and the elders then return to camp.

Jehovah sent a great wind that drove quail in from the sea.  They flew only two cubits above the ground and settled all around the camp in the radius of what would be a day's walk.  All that day and night, and the next day as well, the people were out catching quail.  No one caught less than ten homer’s worth.  The dead quails were spread to dry all around the camp.  But while the people were chewing the quail meat, even before they could swallow it, they had incurred the wrath of Jehovah.  He inflicted upon them a deadly illness.  (This place was therefore called Kibroth-hattaavah, because it was there that they buried people who had the "craving".)   From Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed to Hazeroth, where they remained for some time.

Notes
1. The people, who certainly had plenty to gripe about, do not find Jehovah sympathetic to their plight.  He led them out of bondage, out of Egypt and resents their ingratitude.  When he hears them grousing, he sets fire to the outskirts of their camp.  It's not clear how he does this, spontaneous combustion, does he hurl thunderbolts or drop incendiary material or what?  The text is not explicit whether the fires merely destroyed property or incinerated some people as well.  At any rate, it reveals what he already know of Jehovah's character.  He is thin-skinned and quick to anger and to assuage his anger he becomes destructive and murderous.  Moses must, as he often does, intervene to quell the violent rages of someone who consistently evinces the temperament of a psychopath.

2.  The first description of manna is offered in Exodus.  This seems an alternative narrative varying only somewhat from the first.  Both have the Israelites during their wanderings in the desert of Sinai consuming manna exclusively.  There has been much speculation as to what manna might have been, some sort of resin, a seed, an insect of some sort, but no natural explanation is credible: there is no food source that can, by itself, sustain a man over a long period of time or fill all his nutritional needs.  Some hypothetical synthetic food developed by an advanced civilization might do so and, if Jehovah were, in fact, a member of such an advanced civilization, perhaps extraterrestrial, he might have supplied such a food to his people, dropping it from the sky via airship, or, alternatively, causing it to materialize it on the ground.

3.  Moses complains to Jehovah about the burden of leadership and unasked-for responsibility.  Jehovah actually addresses his complaint by investing some of his spiritual essence (?) in 70 of the Israelite elders.  In practical terms, what this means is not made clear, but the immediate result is that the elders begin to prophecy, even two of the elders (Eldad and Medad -- wonderful how these names are always remembered!) who are AWOL from the Tabernacle meeting with Jehovah.  Were they making meaningful predictions of the future?  If so, why didn't someone record the prophecies?  It seems more likely that what they were doing was speaking in tongues, that is, speaking a language they did not know.  They could have been speaking in the language of Jehovah since they now may have been in telepathic rapport with him.

4.  The story of the quails is an interesting one.  It first seems a fairy tale, but when correctly translated and understood, it is a plausible incident.  Quails, which are very good to eat, would have been much desired by the meat-deprived Israelites.  They are plentiful in the area.  They migrate in very large numbers.  They fly with the wind and often only a few feet above the ground.  They, therefore, are easy to catch.  Once killed, it was customary to set them out in the sun to dry.  Many translations mistakenly refer to quails lying on the ground 2 cubits high all over the camp.  This is patently absurd.  What is meant is that the quails were flying two cubits above the ground.   Migrating quails sometimes feed on seeds which, though harmless to them, are poisonous to humans who may eat the quail.  This was well documented in ancient times.  We know the affliction to be coturnism, a toxic illness.  Therefore, people eating migratory quail and then falling suddenly ill is authentic.  Of course, since Jehovah must be the cause of everything, it is he, not the poisonous seeds, that is responsible for the illness, inflicted as a punishment for ingratitude.  (Jehovah is like a cruel parent who when his children yearn for ice cream denied them, make them eat a whole gallon and get sick on the stuff.  Here, though, Jehovah is quite content to kill his children as punishment.)  Also, it might be pointed out that the Israelites, long accustomed to eating manna, might have had difficulty readjusting to a normal diet and would have been sickened after eating any kind of food.  (There is some opinion that manna was so entirely consumed by the human body that defecation was unnecessary.)

5.  Jehovah promises to furnish the Israelites with a month's supply of food.  The large migratory flocks of quails suffice for a supply.  But how can the people eat meat for a month when many of them drop dead at the first bite.  And seeing others become ill after eating the quail, why would others tempt fate and continue eating it?

6.  Moses claims he has 600,000 men to feed.  He seems to forget that the women and children and older men also need to be fed.  It has already been pointed out that such numbers are impossible and preposterous. 

7.  Two cubits would be about three feet.  Ten homers would be 50 or 60 bushels.

8.  Hazeroth, like Kibroth-hattaavah, is in the Sinai north of the holy mountain.