Scripture Daily

Context No. 338 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 11:28-35: in context

28Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his chosen men, answered, “My lord Moses, forbid them!” 29Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” 30Moses went into the camp, he and the elders of Israel. 31A wind from the LORD went out and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, about a day’s journey on this side, and a day’s journey on the other side, around the camp, and about two cubits above the surface of the earth. 32The people rose up all that day, and all of that night, and all the next day, and gathered the quails. He who gathered least gathered ten homers; and they spread them all out for themselves around the camp. 33While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the LORD’s anger burned against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. 34The name of that place was called Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who lusted. 35From Kibroth Hattaavah the people traveled to Hazeroth; and they stayed at Hazeroth.

This passage sits in the middle of a hard stretch in the wilderness, when the people's complaining had worn Moses down to the point of despair. God's remedy was to take some of the Spirit that was on Moses and put it on seventy elders to share the load, and they prophesied. But two men, Eldad and Medad, who had stayed back in the camp rather than gathering at the tent, received the Spirit too and began prophesying right there among the people, off-site and unauthorized.

A young man runs to tell Moses, and Joshua, protective of his master's unique authority, says, my lord Moses, stop them. It is a very natural instinct: these two are prophesying outside the proper channel, without standing where they were supposed to stand, and it threatens Moses' singular position. But Moses will have none of it. Are you jealous for my sake, he asks Joshua. And then the line that reveals the size of the man: I wish that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his Spirit on every one of them. Moses would gladly give away his own uniqueness. He does not guard the gift as his private prerogative; he longs for it to be poured out on everyone, even if that means he is no longer the only one who has it. The passage goes on to the people's craving for meat and the quail that followed, but this small exchange is its bright center.

Joshua's reflex is the one most of us share, protecting our position by keeping others from rising into the same gift. Moses' is the rarer, larger thing. When someone near me starts to flourish in the very area where I have been the one, do I want to stop them, quietly guarding my standing, or can I honestly say, like Moses, I wish this gift on everyone, even at the cost of being no longer the only one?

Sources