Nu. 11: God Mad; Quail & Manna

I read the eleventh chapter of Numbers, and thought I had already read this part. The Israelites complaining about the food, and wishing they had been back in Egypt, because the food was better, and then Moses dumping it on God. I mostly had read all this. Exodus 16 is a prime example, and here the Israelites are, having been eating manna for about 2 years, and decided it was time to gripe.

But I don’t want to skip over the first three crazy verses in chapter 11. The people were complaining, and then God’s anger was aroused. The Bible says that the fire burned among the people on the outskirts of the camp. They cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed and the fire died down. I don’t know if people died, the Bible doesn’t say. I assume, by the language, that people did. I don’t want to believe it was just because people were whiny, but God’s love has never been separate from his holiness. And here, the Bible says the God’s anger was aroused. It shows me that God is not “an angry being.” He is, however, capable of anger. Anger is a part of Him that can be aroused. It doesn’t merely define who He is.

So the Israelites are griping about how great it was back in Egypt, and Moses has to have another heart-to-heart with God. Moses, whether his attitude is right or wrong, lays it all out before God. I imagine he must have felt like a babysitter during this time, as he offers the idea that he conceived and bore them as a single mother. He can’t take the burden any more, and he tells God. He doesn’t have to hide who he is before God, He doesn’t sugar coat his words before God. There is passion in his speech, in his words, in his metaphors.

So God has Moses gather up seventy elders from Israel, and tells him God will put His Spirit on them, and that they will prophesy. This will be a group of people who will be sort of Moses’ assistants. God doesn’t give these elders more power, or their own power, he takes some from Moses and puts it on them. This caused some controversy in the camp, as two of the men who didn’t go to the meeting were still given this prophetic power. See, they didn’t have to go to some stuffy church. But I wonder what it is exactly these men prophesied about? Did they basically do whatever Moses was going to do? At any rate, they seemed to lighten the load.

In a case of “Be careful what you wish for,” God tells Moses that the people will eat meat for a month straight, so much so that they will be sick of it, and it “comes out of your nostrils.” Oy. Reminds me of when Homer Simpson is eating that steak in a contest against Reliable Red Barclay, and he says “My sinuses are packed with meat” and “There’s still food on my plate, but I don’t want it.”

Moses thinks like a person, wondering just how many animals are going to have to be slaughtered to feed these hundreds of thousands of people, and in his mind, is doing all this math to see just how much cattle will be needed to get this much meat. God says, “Is the arm of the LORD too short? (Which is probably where that rap group got its name)” And God covers the ground 3 feet deep with quail.

The people, while they were still chewing the meat, evidently, managed to make God mad enough to send a plague and kill some people. Complaining while being fed is what I imagine their offense was.

Ex. 16: What is It?

In chapter 16, we are a mere 45 days out from having escaped the Egyptians. Apparently the cuisine in the desert was not as delectable as what was served to them between whippings in Egypt. So the Israelites again grumbled to Moses. Once again, the melodrama, "If only we had died in Egypt! At least there we sat around pots of meat and ate all we wanted, but now here we are in the desert starving to death." Talk about a lack of perspective. No foresight. No expectations of God to deliver.

This makes me wonder...maybe freedom is a desert at times. Maybe in freedom, there is wandering. Do we expect too much from our freedom from whatever it was that had us in bondage? Do we miss our bondage because we perceive that life was better then?

The LORD pulls Moses aside and tells him that He is going to rain bread down from heaven. It came with instructions...

1. They are only allowed to gather enough for that day. Every day.

2. On the sixth day, they are to prepare what they bring, and should gather enough for two days, as the seventh day will be one of what's called "sabbath" rest.

Moses goes and tells the Israelites that they can expect this miracle from God, so they will know again that He is the LORD, and they He is the one who brought them out of Egypt. Also, he adds that they shouldn't grumble against him and Aaron. Moses and Aaron don't have the power to induce anything grumble-worthy. But the Israelites saw that Moses was being used by God.

Anyway, that evening, quail came and covered the camp. So...there was lots of quail. The next morning the dew was replaced by thin wafers like frost on the ground. The Israelites emerged from the tent, and marveled at the sight.
"What is it?" They asked one another. That's how it got the name...Manna. It was white and tasted like wafers made with honey.

"What it is," Moses said, "is the bread the LORD has given you to eat." And Moses disseminated the command God had given to him earlier.

Some of them were like, whatever, I'm not listening, and gathered too much. By morning it was all maggoty and rotten. There was just enough time in the morning for the Israelites to gather however much they needed before the sun melted it away. So this bread was just enough for everyone. It wasn't possible to have too much. Everyone had what they needed.

God commands a day of rest beginning in Exodus 16:23. The Israelites were commanded to do all of their work on the sixth day, so that they could rest on the seventh. Like creation. This time around, the gathered extra did not get all maggoty and rotten.

When people went out on the seventh day anyway, there was nothing to be gathered. There was no benefit to working when God commanded rest.

Moses and Aaron take an omer of manna, and preserved it in a jar before the LORD, so that future generations would be able to see the bread God provided for them in the wilderness. For forty years, this manna sustained the people of Israel until they reached the border of Canaan.