The Lord Sends Quail

Complaining. Israel had only just left Mount Sinai when the trouble started. “Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord” (11:1). God sent fire at the edge of the camp, and the place was named Taberah, which means burning. Craving. “Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving” (11:4). The mixed multitude were people from other nations who had left Egypt with Israel. Craving means wanting something so badly that it takes over your heart. It spread. Soon the whole camp caught it. “So the children of Israel also wept again and said: ‘Who will give us meat to eat?’” (11:4). Complaining works that way. One person grumbles, and before long everyone is grumbling. Remembering wrong. “We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt” (11:5). They remembered the fish and the melons, but they forgot the cruel slave masters. In Egypt they had been slaves, and God had set them free. Ungrateful. “There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!” (11:6). God fed them with a miracle every morning, and they called it boring. A good gift. The Bible tells us what the manna was really like. It “was like coriander seed,” a small seed, and “its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil” (11:7-8). “When the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it” (11:9). Every night God put breakfast on the ground for them. What this means for you. Complaining makes us forget God's gifts. A thankful heart remembers them. Today, look for the good things God gives you every day, and thank Him for them.

Taberah (11:1-3). Israel's first stop after Sinai began with complaining, and God sent a fire of judgment at the edge of the camp. Moses prayed, and the fire stopped. The place was named Taberah, which means burning. Grumbling against God is serious. The mixed multitude (11:4). Exodus 12:38 says “a mixed multitude went up with them.” These were people from other nations who left Egypt with Israel, and their craving spread to all Israel. The Hebrew phrase is literally craved a craving, a strong desire that took over the heart. Selective memory (11:5). They remembered food “freely” eaten in Egypt, but forgot the brick quotas and the cries of slavery (Exodus 2:23). When we want something badly enough, we can start remembering our old slavery as if it were freedom. “Dried up” (11:6). “Our whole being is dried up.” The Hebrew word for being, nefesh (say: NEH-fesh), often means soul or appetite. Their complaint was about more than taste. They felt empty inside, but they looked for the answer in food instead of in God. How good the manna was (11:7-9). Right after the complaint, God's Word tells us what the manna was really like: like coriander seed, the color of bdellium (a pale resin), tasting like pastry with oil, and falling with the dew every night. The people called it nothing, but it was a good gift from a faithful God. The New Testament. Paul writes that “these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted” (1 Corinthians 10:6). God gave us this story so that we would learn to trust Him and thank Him.

Israel had just left Mount Sinai. Already the people began to complain. First they complained about their troubles. Then some troublemakers started wanting better food. Soon everyone was crying for meat. They remembered Egypt. They talked about the fish, cucumbers, melons, onions and garlic. But they forgot something important. In Egypt they had been slaves! God had rescued them. God fed them with manna every single morning. It was a miracle on the ground each day. But they said, “We never see anything but this manna!” They were not thankful for God's gift.

The people complained about their food. God gave them manna every day. But they wanted something else. God wants us to be thankful.

Crying everywhere. “Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent” (11:10). The whole camp was crying for meat. Two reactions. “The anger of the Lord was greatly aroused; Moses also was displeased” (11:10). God was angry because His people rejected His good care. Moses was upset because leading them felt like too big a job. An honest prayer. Moses did not grumble about God to other people. He took his feelings straight to God: “Why have You afflicted Your servant?” (11:11). Afflicted means troubled. Like a parent. “Did I conceive all these people?… ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child’” (11:12). Moses felt like a parent trying to carry a whole nation of crying children. Where? “Where am I to get meat to give to all these people?” (11:13). Moses knew he could not feed them. Too heavy. “I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me” (11:14). Moses was right. No one person could carry that load. God's answer. God did not scold Moses. He said, “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel… and they shall bear the burden of the people with you” (11:16-17). God gave Moses helpers and put His Spirit on them. What this means for you. Grumbling against God and praying honestly to Him are very different. You can tell God when life feels too heavy. He listens, and He gives help.

Two kinds of anger (11:10). The Lord was angry, and Moses was displeased. God was angry because His people despised His good care. Moses was upset because the weight of leading them had become too much for him. Lament (11:11-15). Moses' prayer is a lament, an honest cry of pain brought to God, like many of the Psalms. He asks “Why?” and describes his burden with the picture of a parent carrying a nursing child (11:12). The people complained against God; Moses complained to God. That difference matters. The darkest point (11:15). Moses even asks God to take his life. Elijah would later pray the same way (1 Kings 19:4). God does not approve of despair, but He does not reject His tired servant either. He answers with care. Shared burden (11:16-17). God provides seventy elders and puts “of the Spirit that is upon you” on them. Leadership was never meant to be carried alone (compare Exodus 18:18). The Spirit given (11:24-25). When the Spirit rested on the elders, “they prophesied, although they never did so again.” It was a sign that God Himself had equipped them. Moses' wish (11:29). “Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” Many Christians see this wish come true at Pentecost, when God said, “I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17). Today every believer in Jesus receives the Holy Spirit.

Moses heard crying at every tent door. Every family was complaining. God was very angry, and Moses was upset too. Moses prayed honestly to God. He asked God why He gave him all these people. Moses was not their father! He did not know where to get meat for them. He could not take care of them alone. It was too much for him. God did not scold Moses for being honest. Instead God gave him help. God chose seventy leaders to help Moses. God put His Spirit on them. Now Moses would not have to carry the people alone.

Moses felt very tired. Everyone was crying to him. He told God it was too much. God gave him helpers.

Get ready. God told Moses to say, “Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat” (11:18). Consecrate means make yourselves holy and ready, because God was about to act. A whole month. “You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month” (11:19-20). God would give them so much meat that they would be sick of it. The real problem. “Because you have despised the Lord who is among you” (11:20). Despise means to treat as worthless. The people's real problem was not their stomachs. It was their hearts, because they had pushed God away. Moses' doubt. Moses started counting. “Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to provide enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them?” (11:22). He could only think of what people could do. God's question. “Has the Lord's arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether what I say will happen to you or not” (11:23). In the Bible, God's arm stands for His power. A short arm cannot reach far, but God's arm can reach anything. What this means for you. When a problem looks too big, don't measure it by what you can do. Measure it by who God is. He is never too weak to do what He says.

Judgment by granting (11:18-20). God answered the demand by giving exactly what was asked, and far more. The meat would come “until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you.” Sometimes the hardest judgment is getting what we crave. The real problem (11:20). The issue was not hunger but rejection: “you have despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, ‘Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?’” Wanting Egypt meant wanting life without God. Moses' arithmetic (11:21-22). Six hundred thousand men, plus their families, for a month. Moses counted what people could supply, and the numbers came up short. The Lord's arm (11:23). In Scripture God's arm stands for His power to save (Exodus 6:6; Isaiah 59:1). The answer to God's question is no. His arm has not grown short, and nothing is beyond His reach. A parallel. When Jesus fed five thousand, His disciples also counted and came up short (John 6:5-9). The same Lord provided, and there was food left over. Psalm 78. The psalm remembers Israel's doubt: “They said, ‘Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?’” (Psalm 78:19). They asked it to doubt Him, and God answered by setting the table.

God gave Moses a message for the people. They should get ready, because tomorrow they would eat meat. They would not eat it for just one or two days. It would last a whole month! They would eat until they were sick of it. Why? They had rejected the Lord, who was with them. Moses could not imagine it. He told God there were 600,000 men there! Even all the sheep and fish would not be enough. But God said, “Do you think I'm weak? You will see if I can do what I say.” God is never too weak to keep His promises. Nothing is too hard for Him. Moses would soon see God's power.

Moses wondered how to get so much meat. God said, “Do you think I'm weak?” God is strong. Nothing is too hard for Him!

The wind. God kept His word. “Now a wind went out from the Lord, and it brought quail from the sea” (11:31). Quail are small birds that fly low. Everywhere. The quail covered the ground “about a day's journey on this side and about a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp” (11:31). Greedy gathering. “The people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail” (11:32). They did not stop to thank God. They just kept grabbing. Huge piles. “He who gathered least gathered ten homers” (11:32). A homer was a large measure, about a donkey's load. Even the person who gathered the least had ten donkey loads! Judgment. “While the meat was still between their teeth… the Lord struck the people with a very great plague” (11:33). A plague is a deadly sickness. God judged their greedy, unthankful hearts. A sad name. They called the place “Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving” (11:34). The name means graves of craving. What this means for you. Getting what we crave does not satisfy. The people's stomachs were full, but their hearts were still empty. Only God can fill our hearts, and He does it through Jesus.

God's power (11:31). The wind “went out from the Lord.” Quail migrate across the region, but the timing and the amount were God's doing. He kept His word from verse 23. Excess (11:32). “He who gathered least gathered ten homers.” A homer was roughly the load a donkey could carry, so ten was an enormous amount. The people gathered for a day and a half without stopping. Judgment (11:33). “While the meat was still between their teeth.” God's judgment fell before they had finished the first bites. It was aimed at the greedy, unbelieving craving in their hearts, not at eating meat. The name (11:34). Kibroth Hattaavah (say: kib-ROHTH hat-tah-ah-VAH) means graves of craving. Every time Israel remembered that place, they remembered the warning. Psalm 106:15. “And He gave them their request, But sent leanness into their soul.” Their stomachs were full, but their souls were starving. Paul's warning. “Nor complain, as some of them also complained… Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:10-11). Admonition means warning.

Then God sent a strong wind from the sea. The wind blew quail all around the camp. Quail are small birds that fly low. There were birds a day's walk in every direction! The people ran out to gather them. They gathered all day, all night and all the next day. Everyone gathered huge piles. They were not thankful. They were greedy. While they were still eating, God became very angry. A terrible sickness came on the people, and many died. They named the place Graves of Craving. Craving means wanting something too much. Wanting things more than God always ends in sadness.

God sent lots of quail. The people grabbed too many. God was angry, and many people died. God wants hearts that trust Him.