“142. MURMURINGS—NUMBERS 11”

Murmurings—Numbers 11

When all the purposes of Israel’s sojourn among the Sinai mountains had been accomplished, the signal for their departure was given. This was on the twentieth day of the second month of the second year of their departure from Egypt. It was wisely ordered by the Providence which watched over Israel, that Moses was relieved from all responsibility with respect to times of removal and places of encampment, by the whole matter being visibly ordered by an authority none could gainsay. Whenever the appointed time of removal came, the pillar of cloud, usually stationary, was seen to move. It rose: and then the direction it took indicated the course they were to take, and the spot where it again settled, pointed out the place of encampment. Thus miraculously guided, the tribes, moving in an orderly and appointed manner, proceeded for three days till they came to the wilderness of Paran, and there they were directed to pitch their tents.

At this place the people began to murmur, from what cause we are not told, but probably at the hardships and fatigues of their march in the desert. The indulgence allowed to their weakness on their first departure from Egypt, is no longer conceded to them after the training and organization they had undergone—and after the further opportunities afforded them of understanding their relations to the Lord, and of knowing his care, his bounty, his power, and his judgments. All murmurings before Sinai are passed ever, or merely rebuked—all murmuring and rebellion after Sinai bring down punishment and doom. They have now a law, and know what it exacts from them, and by that law they must be judged. So in this case, the fire of the Lord came, and “consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.” Any fire sent by the Lord, is a fire of the Lord. Some think it was a fire wholly supernatural; others that it was lightning; others that it was the simoom, or hot-wind of the desert; while some reduce it to a burning of the dry shrubbery of the desert, which extended to and fired the tents on the outskirts of the camp. Any of these means might have been a fit instrument of judgment in the Lord’s hand, and the judgment was recognized as his punishment of their sin. The name of Taberah, or the burning, was given to the spot in sorrowful memory of the event.

As the Israelites encamped in a most orderly manner, according to their tribes, those in the outermost parts of the camp must surely have been the mixed multitude which we have had former occasion to notice. How little they profited by this correction is seen by the fact of a new and more serious murmuring which arose among them at the very next station, and which spread rapidly among the tribes. There it is expressly said to have been “the mixed multitude among whom this arose. The term hardly conveys the contemptuous force of the original. They have before been called a “rabble;” they are now called the a-saf-sef—the force of which can perhaps only be conveyed by such strictly analogous terms as riff-raff, or ruff-scuff. This term, however, is applied rather to denote their moral and social disorganization, than their low estate in this world’s possessions—for poverty, low birth, destitution, are in themselves never mentioned with disrespect or contumely in the books of Moses.

And what would one suppose ails them now? There is not now any lack of food or water for them. No: but they are become dainty. They have taken a surfeit of the manna—their soul loathes “this light food,” as they slightingly call it, and they long for the fish, the flesh, the vegetables, they had eaten in Egypt. We fear that at the bottom there may be many who sympathize with them, though formally obliged to condemn the conduct which the Scripture deems so culpable. But let us consider that all their wants were provided for day by day, without their care, thought, or labor, and the poorest of them, had as much wholesome food as he could eat without cost; whereas what they had in Egypt, and which would have been less wholesome in the life they now led, had been the purchase of their stripes and hard toil. Let us see that this manna, which they had already come to contemn, was highly nutritive and wholesome food, as nearly as possible analogous to what forms the staff of life—be it rice or corn—to the present inhabitants of the desert, who rarely taste meat or vegetables, and are but too happy if they can get enough of their customary food. But more than all, let us consider that at this time they were actually on their march to the Promised Land, and had then reason to suppose that, in a few months at most, they would be in possession of all their heart could wish; and that, as free men, with heads erect in all the worth and honor of independence—if their present position had been quite as bad—if it had been ten times worse than they alleged—if the manna, instead of being “bread from heaven,” were quite unwholesome and unpalatable—all might and ought to have been cheerfully borne, in consideration of the circumstances in which they were placed—of the prospect of speedy relief, and of the high hopes which lay before them. Taking all these things into account, we shall be the better able to understand the deep displeasure this conduct awakened in their Divine King, and the intense grief and indignation which Moses himself expressed. In fact, Moses must by this time have begun to suspect, that this generation, fresh from Egypt, and enfeebled in soul by its bondage, was hardly fit for the vocation to which it had been called. It is by some such thought, probably, that his own language becomes unusually desponding and distrustful, and for the time his strong spirit faints under the burdens that lay upon him. Hear the language of his despair and grief—“Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing-father beareth the sucking child, unto the land that thou swearest unto their fathers?” How apt the similitude—they were as sucking children—looking to him as dependently and as regardless of his position or resources, for food, and raising the same clamor if it were not given. But he proceeds—“Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat. I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.” And this is Moses. Alas, for the strength of man! What is it but weakness at the best? Still, we do not see that he yet distrusts God; but he gets hopeless of any good from this people. He sees that they are, in all but physical condition, children; and he feels that it is not in him to raise them to the sentiments and views of men. God can provide for their real wants; but what avails it? Nothing will satisfy them long.

The Lord had great pity on his fainting servant; and as he appeared to be breaking down under the labors which the government of a nation so newly organized imposed upon him, the aid was given to him of seventy elders, on whom was bestowed in a public manifestation at the tabernacle, a portion of that Spirit which dwelt abundantly in him. Nor was this all: the much coveted flesh was promised—flesh not for one day only, nor for two, nor for five, nor for ten, nor for twenty, but even for a whole month. This intimation startled even the faith of Moses. “The people among whom I am,” he said. “are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them?”

The answer was by another question, full of suggestion and rebuke to him—“Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?”

The words of Moses are, however, well worthy the consideration of those—and there are some such—who speculate upon the possibilities that the Israelites might be, in that wilderness, supplied with food without miracle. The leader himself clearly knew and felt the impossibility of supplying so large a multitude with food, for merely a short time, in that region, even with the sacrifice of their own flocks and herds. One would think, that those who never travel beyond their own firesides, might, in this day of general information, contrive to realize this idea; even though it should be less forcibly impressed than upon the minds of those who have traversed the same or similar regions. The difficulty is still greater than appears in the sacred volume; for there we read only of the natural difficulty of supplying the people with food, with no mention of the difficulty of finding pasture for their flocks and herds, if at all numerous in proportion to the usual extent of such possessions among a pastoral people. It is indeed possible, that their wealth of this kind was much less than usually supposed, having declined during the latter years of their sojourn in Egypt, occupied as they were in bond-labor, and in the culture of the ground.

On these points we must suffer a very intelligent American traveler to speak—“No reflection forced itself upon me so often or so urgently, as the utter and universal inaptitude of thus country for the sustenance of animal life. It really seems to possess no element favorable to human existence besides a pure atmosphere, and no appearances favor the supposition, that it was ever essentially better. I am filled with wonder that so may travelers should task their ingenuity to get clear of the miracles which, according to the narrative of Moses, were wrought to facilitate the journey of that vast unwieldy host, when it is demonstrable, that they could not have subsisted three days in this desert without supernatural resources. The extensive region, through which we were twelve days in passing on dromedaries, is, and ever must have been, incapable of affording food sufficient to support even a few thousand, or a few hundred people for a month in the year. There is no corn-land nor pasturage, no game nor roots, hardly any birds or insects, and the scanty supply of water is loathsome to the taste, promoting rather than appeasing thirst. What could the two millions of Israel have eaten without the miracles of the manna and the quails? How could they have escaped destruction by drought but for the healing waters of Marah? … One of the chief difficulties I met with in the narrative of Moses, is that of accounting for the subsistence of the numerous herds and flocks that belonged to the retreating host. We hear of no miraculous provision for their support, and it seems incredible that they could have subsisted upon the scanty verdure afforded by the flinty soil of the desert, after making all possible allowance for its deterioration by the physical changes of three thousand years. They were probably much less numerous than we are accustomed to suppose, from the very general and indefinite language used in the Bible upon the subject; and they were undoubtedly dispersed over the whole region lying between the long range of mountains now known as Jebel Raha and Jebel Tih on the east, and the Red Sea on the west.” Note: Dr. Olin. Travels in the East, i. 382.]

The promised supply of flesh was provided, as formerly, by immense flocks of quails that poured into the camp, being brought up from the direction of the sea by a strong wind; and the people stood up all that day and night, and the following day, and secured an ample provision. But although their request was granted, the flesh, greedily collected and devoured ravenously, “was still between their teeth,”—when a great pestilence broke out among them, in token of the Divine displeasure, and large numbers of them—it is not said how many—died, and from their being buried there, the place took the name of Kibroth-hattaavah, “the graves of lust.” They were thus taught the wisdom of leaving the supply of their wants to the will of Him who watched over them with paternal care, and who knew what was best for them in all the circumstances of their condition. It is very possible that the inordinate indulgence in animal food, after long abstinence therefrom, became the instrument of their punishment; for it is known that dangerous, and often fatal maladies, are frequently thus produced. Some have thought that the quails themselves might at this time be “out of season,” and therefore unwholesome—forgetting that a supply of the same food, at the same season the preceding year, had not been followed by any ill effects. But at that time they had been too recently from Egypt to be injuriously affected by it as a change of food.

Autor: JOHN KITTO