Scripture Daily

Context No. 188 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 11:16-20: in context

16The LORD said to Moses, “Gather to me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; and bring them to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit which is on you, and will put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you don’t bear it yourself alone. 18“Say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, and you will eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat. 19You will not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils, and it is loathsome to you; because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’”

Moses has just told God he cannot carry this people alone, that the burden is too heavy, and that if this is how it is going to be, kill me now. This passage is the answer to that, and to a second complaint running alongside it: the people want meat.

The first answer is help. Gather seventy of the elders, bring them to the tent, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you do not bear it alone. The wording is worth pausing on. The Spirit is taken from what Moses already has and distributed. Nothing is added; the same load is spread across more shoulders.

The second answer is not kind. Tell the people to consecrate themselves, because tomorrow they will eat meat, and they will eat it not one day, or two, or ten, or twenty, but a whole month, until it comes out of their nostrils and becomes loathsome to them, because they have rejected the LORD who is among them and asked why they ever left Egypt. Getting exactly what was demanded is the judgment. Two complaints, two answers: shared help for the man carrying too much, and a month of quail for the people who wanted what they had before. Which of those two complaints is mine right now?

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