Numbers 11:10, commentary and pictures

God had brought Israel out of Egypt to prove them, and their weeping discontent came after He had given them provision and revelations of His power and mercy, which made their murmuring especially guilty. He withheld meat in great measure and gave them the healthy food He designed for them, bread rained from heaven to eat freely, the angels' food manna, and pure water from the rock, with promise of no disease if they obeyed Him fully. The lust for flesh began with the mixed multitude, the believing Egyptians, and then spread until it infected nearly the whole people. It was stirred up by Satan, who approaches God's people through appetite where he can have greatest success and has controlled appetite in great measure since leading Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and it would soon have leavened the entire camp.

Throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent, the people wept and lamented and complained against Moses' commands and against God Himself. Their weeping was seditious murmuring over appetite that grew into rebellion. They wished themselves back in Egypt by the flesh pots, at times preferring slavery and even death to being deprived of meat. The anger of the Lord was kindled greatly against them. His first answer was not to gratify their lustful appetite but to send judgment by fire flashing like lightning from heaven from the cloudy pillar, which consumed the most guilty complainers and the instigators of the trouble.

That punishment did not humble the people but only increased their murmuring. Then in His anger God gratified their lustful appetite by giving that vast multitude quails in abundance, but He let them reap the result and did not work a miracle to preserve life. He sent a plague that destroyed thousands, with great numbers dying in the act of eating while the meat was yet between their teeth. Moses also was displeased and greatly distressed when he heard the weeping.

As a nursing father who made the people's sufferings his own, he felt his weakness under the great work committed to him as no other man had felt it, burdened by continually witnessing Israel's disobedience and unsubmissive spirit and hearing their complaints. Moses laid the difficulty of his position before the Lord, asking how he could bear so heavy a responsibility alone because it was too heavy for him and saying he was not able to bear it alone. He declared he would rather die than watch Israel by perverseness draw down judgments upon themselves while God's enemies rejoiced over their destruction. Seventy judges and elders were appointed to aid him.

That appointment Aaron and Miriam opposed because, having been chosen to aid Moses and having had the Lord speak by them as well as by Moses, they thought they bore the burden of the work as well as Moses and saw no need for the seventy. Aaron had shown weakness by yielding to the people to make a molten calf in Moses' absence while God had ever been Moses' counselor. Moses also pleaded with God for the people. Letting appetite control them, lusting for flesh meat, and intemperance in eating and drinking provoke the anger of the Lord and bring death.

It calls for health reform and temperance in eating and drinking so minds are clearer to discern what affects the salvation of the soul, and lamenting because meat-eating is restricted repeats the weeping complaint that provoked the Lord's anger. The people's complaints and Moses' displeasure are part of Israel's failure under temptation, in which appetite led them to sin and their rebellion contributed to nearly all who left Egypt dying before reaching Canaan.