God punishes complaining with fire
11
📚✭And the people were like those who complain of hardship in the hearing of the LORD. And the LORD heard it, and his anger was aroused, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 📚✭And the people cried out to Moses; and when Moses prayed to the LORD the fire was quenched. 3 📚And he called the name of the place Taberah✭, because the fire of the LORD burned among them. God sends quail and punishment with them
4 📚✭And the mixed crowd that was among them had greedy desires, and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? 5 📚We remember the fish which we ate for free in Egypt, and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. 6 📚But now we waste away. There is nothing at all before our eyes except this manna”.
7 📚And the manna was like coriander seed, and its colour like the colour of bdellium. 8 📚And the people went around and gathered it, and ground it between millstones, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes with it. And its taste was like the taste of some preparation made with oil. 9 📚And when the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna fell on it.
10 📚✭Then Moses heard the people wailing, everyone in their families at the entrance of their tents. And the anger of the LORD was greatly aroused. It was also an evil thing in the eyes of Moses. 11 📚And Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you treated me badly? And why have I not found favour in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 📚Have I conceived all this people? Have I given them birth, so that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries an infant at the breast, to the land which you swore to give to their fathers?’ 13 📚Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are wailing to me, saying, ‘Give us meat to eat.’ 14 📚I am not able to carry all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. 15 📚✭And if you are going to treat me like this, please kill me at once, if I have found favour in your sight, and do not let me see my own misery”.
16 📚And the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers, and bring them to the tabernacle of the congregation, so that they may stand there with you. 17 📚And I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and will put the same on them; and they will carry the burden of the people with you, so that you do not carry it by yourself.
18 📚“And say to the people, Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you will eat meat; for you have wailed 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. 19 You will eat it not one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 📚but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils, and it becomes loathsome✭ to you; because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wailed in his presence, saying, ‘Why did we come out of Egypt?’ ”
21 📚And Moses said, “The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand men on foot, and you have said, ‘I will give them meat so that they may eat it for a whole month.’ 22 📚Will the flocks and the herds be slaughtered for them, so they can have enough? Or will all the fish in the sea be gathered for them so they can have enough?”
23 📚✭And the LORD said to Moses, “Has the LORD’s hand become short? You will see now whether my word comes true for you or not”.
24 📚And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD, and gathered seventy elders of the people, and had them stand around the tabernacle. 25 📚And the LORD came down in a cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was on him and gave the same to the seventy elders. And it happened that, when the Spirit✭ rested on them, they prophesied✭, but did not continue.
26 📚But two of the men remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. They were enrolled with the others but did not go to the tabernacle. And the Spirit rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp”.
28 📚✭And Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant from his youth, answered and said, “My lord Moses, forbid them”.
29 📚✭And Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” 30 And Moses returned to the camp, he and the elders of Israel.
31 📚✭And a wind from the LORD went out and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall near the camp for about the distance of a day’s journey on this side, and about a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp, and about two cubits deep on the surface of the ground. 32 📚And the people were up all that day and all that night and all the next day gathering the quails. The one who gathered the least gathered ten homers✭. And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. 33 📚✭And while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD burned against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very severe plague. 34 📚✭And he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had been greedy.
35 📚And the people set out from Kibroth Hattaavah for Hazeroth, and stayed at Hazeroth.