Numbers
Numbers 11
1The people were complaining in the ears of Yahweh. When Yahweh heard it, his anger burned; and Yahweh’s fire burned among them, and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2The people cried to Moses; and Moses prayed to Yahweh, and the fire abated. 3The name of that place was called Taberah, because Yahweh’s fire burned among them.
4The mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly; and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? 5We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; 6but now we have lost our appetite. There is nothing at all except this manna to look at.” 7The manna was like coriander seed, and it looked like bdellium. 8The people went around, gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it. Its taste was like the taste of fresh oil. 9When the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.
10Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, every man at the door of his tent; and Yahweh’s anger burned greatly; and Moses was displeased. 11Moses said to Yahweh, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why haven’t I found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12Have I conceived all this people? Have I brought them out, that you should tell me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which you swore to their fathers?’ 13Where could I get meat to give all these people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. 15If you treat me this way, please kill me right now, if I have found favor in your sight; and don’t let me see my wretchedness.”
16Yahweh 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 Yahweh, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore Yahweh 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 Yahweh who is among you, and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?” ’ ”
21Moses said, “The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand men on foot; and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month.’ 22Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to be sufficient for them? Shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be sufficient for them?”
23Yahweh said to Moses, “Has Yahweh’s hand grown short? Now you will see whether my word will happen to you or not.”
24Moses went out, and told the people Yahweh’s words; and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them around the Tent. 25Yahweh came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was on him, and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did so no more. 26But two men remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad; and the Spirit rested on them. They were of those who were written, but had not gone out to the Tent; and they prophesied in the camp. 27A young man ran, and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!”
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 Yahweh’s people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his Spirit on them!”
30Moses went into the camp, he and the elders of Israel. 31A wind from Yahweh 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, Yahweh’s anger burned against the people, and Yahweh 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.
Commentary
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 68 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry5
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Here is, I. The people's sin. They complained, Num 11:1. They were, as it were, complainers. So it is in the margin. There were some secret grudgings and discontents among them, which as yet did not break out in an open mutiny. But how great a matter did this…
These verses represent things sadly unhinged and out of order in Israel, both the people and the prince uneasy. I. Here is the people fretting, and speaking against God himself (as it is interpreted, Psa 78:19), notwithstanding his glorious appearances both…
We have here God's gracious answer to both the foregoing complaints, wherein his goodness takes occasion from man's badness to appear so much the more illustrious. I. Provision is made for the redress of the grievances Moses complains of. If he find the…
John Gill35
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
And when the people complained,.... Or "were as complainers" (p); not merely like to such, but were truly and really complainers, the "caph", here being not a note of similitude, but of truth and reality, as in Hosea 5:10. This Hebraism is frequent in the New…
And the people cried unto Moses,.... And entreated him to pray for them, being frightened at the fire which consumed many of them, lest it should spread and become general among them: and when Moses prayed unto the Lord; as he did, in which he was a type of…
And he called the name of the place Taberah,.... That is, "burning": Moses called it so; or it may be rendered impersonally, it was called (s) so in later times by the people: because the fire of the Lord burnt among them; to perpetuate the, memory of this…
Keil & Delitzsch12
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
After a three days' march the Israelites arrived at a resting-place; but the people began at once to be discontented with their situation. (Note: The arguments by which Knobel undertakes to prove, that in chs. 11 and 12 of the original work different foreign…
From this judgment the place where the fire had burned received the name of "Tabeerah," i.e., burning, or place of burning. Now, as this spot is distinctly described as the end or outermost edge of the camp, this "place of burning" must not be regarded, as it…
The first impulse to this came from the mob that had come out of Egypt along with the Israelites. "The mixed multitude:" see at Exo 12:38. They felt and expressed a longing for the better food which they had enjoyed in Egypt, and which was not to be had in…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown16
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting--These consisted of Egyptians. [See on Exo 12:38.] To dream of banquets and plenty of animal food in the desert becomes a disease of the imagination; and to this excitement of the appetite no people are…
We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely--(See on Exo 7:17). The people of Egypt are accustomed to an almost exclusive diet of fish, either fresh or sun-dried, during the hot season in April and May--the very season when the Israelites were…
But now . . . there is nothing . . . beside this manna--Daily familiarity had disgusted them with the sight and taste of the monotonous food; and, ungrateful for the heavenly gift, they longed for a change of fare. It may be noticed that the resemblance of…
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