Numbers

Complaints of the People and Moses

Taberah

The people were seeking a quarrel with the Lord. The Lord heard, and his anger was aroused. Fire from the Lord flared out against them and burned the outer part of the camp.

Then the people cried out to Moses, and he interceded for them to the Lord, and the fire died out.

They called the place Taberah because the fire of the Lord was inflamed against them.

Complaints

Now the rabble that was among them had greedy desires, and even the Israelites wept and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?

We remember the fish we ate without cost in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and garlic.

Now our appetite is gone; there’s nothing to look at but manna.”

The manna was like coriander seed and appeared like bdellium.

The people gathered it up, ground it between millstones, or pounded it in a mortar. They boiled it in a pot and made cakes with it, which tasted like cakes made with oil.

As soon as the dew fell at night in the camp, the manna came with it.

Moses heard the people crying, family by family, at the entrance to their tent, and the Lord became outraged.

This displeased Moses:

Moses asked the Lord, “Why have you mistreated your servant? Is it because you do not love me that you burdened me with these people?

Did I conceive all these people and give them birth? And now you want me to carry them in my bosom as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their fathers?

Where would I get meat for all these people when they cry to me saying: ‘Give us meat that we may eat?’

I cannot, by myself alone, carry all these people; the burden is too heavy for me.

Kill me rather than treat me like this; I beg of you if you look kindly on me and let me not see your anger.”

Announcement and Fulfillment

The Lord said to Moses:

“Assemble seventy men from the elders of Israel whom you recognize as elders and men of authority over them and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their stand there with you.

I shall come down to speak with you and take some of the spirit in you and put it in them. From now on, they will share the burden of the people with you so that you will no longer bear it alone.

You shall say to the people of Israel: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying: Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt! The Lord will provide you with meat, and

you shall eat, not only one day, or two, or five, or ten, or twenty days

but a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome. For you have rejected the Lord who is in your midst and have wept before him, saying: Why did we ever leave Egypt?”

And Moses said:

“The people I am with are six hundred thousand on foot, and yet you say, ‘I will give them meat, and they shall eat it for a whole month!’

Will sheep and cattle be slaughtered in sufficient numbers for them? All the fish of the sea would not be enough for them.”

The Lord asked Moses:

“Is the Lord’s arm shortened? Now, you shall see whether or not my word is true.”

Moses then told the people what the Lord had said. He assembled seventy men from among the elders and placed them around the Tent.

The Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him. He took some of the spirit upon him and put it on the seventy elders. Now, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. However, they did not do this again.

Eldad and Medad

Two men had remained in the camp; the name of one was Eldad, the name of the other Medad. However, the spirit came on them, for they were among those who were registered, though they had not gone out to the Tent. As they prophesied inside the camp,

a young man ran and told Moses:

“Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

Joshua, the son of Nun, who ministered to Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!”

But Moses said:

“Are you jealous on my behalf? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and the Lord would send his spirit upon them!”

Then Moses and all the elders of the people returned to the camp.

Tombs of Kibroth-hattaavah

A wind arose, sent by the Lord, that drove in quails from the sea and let them down beside the camp, covering the distance of a day’s walk on one side and almost a day’s walk on the other side around the camp; they were about three feet deep on the ground.

The people spent that day, the whole night, and all the next day gathering the quail. He who gathered the least had ten homers, and they spread them out for themselves around the camp.

The meat was still between their teeth when the Lord’s anger was already kindled against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.

That place was named Kibroth-hattaavah because it was there that the greedy people were buried.

From Kibroth-hattaavah, the people moved on towards Hazeroth, where they remained.