Numbers 11:13, commentary and pictures

The question is asked when the people press their demand for flesh upon Moses with weeping, family by family, each at the door of his tent. They weep throughout their families and complain for flesh, bringing their demand to him in weeping complaint.

Their demand springs from lust and discontent, from dissatisfaction and an unsubmissive spirit. Though God had given them manna from heaven with other healthy food and water in the wilderness, they long for the meat of Egypt. Their craving challenges whether God can provide for them in the wilderness. After they have witnessed His power and mercy and have covenanted to obey Him, their murmuring is rebellion and transgression. It is a complaint against Moses and against God Himself, and a failure of temperance in eating and drinking.

Moses' question expresses his distress at being expected to find flesh to give to all this people and his sense of being overwhelmed by the responsibility laid upon him. He has been placed toward the people as a nursing father who must make their sufferings his own. He feels his weakness under a great work committed to him as to no other man. He is burdened by continually witnessing their disobedience and hearing their murmurings against his commands and against God, a load too heavy for him to bear alone.

In laying the difficulty before the Lord he is displeased and grieved. He is grieved that by perverseness Israel is drawing judgments upon themselves while the enemies of God rejoice at their destruction, so that he would rather die than see it. He turns to God for help, yet his prayer has nearly become a complaint. It reflects his own murmuring and temptation to distrust God rather than full trust, as the complaints make his burden feel unbearable and bring him close to distrust.

The Lord answers by arranging for seventy elders and judges to be appointed to share the burden with him. Aaron and Miriam oppose this, reasoning that because they were chosen to aid Moses and the Lord had spoken by them as well as by Moses, they already bear the work with him and there is no need for the seventy. Yet Aaron had shown weakness by yielding to the people and making a molten calf in Moses' absence, while God had ever been Moses' counselor.

God then gives the people flesh in anger to satisfy their appetite, providing quails in abundance for the vast multitude. He lets them reap the result without working a miracle to preserve life. He sends a plague that destroys thousands while the meat is still in their mouths, and many die while eating it. Through appetite Satan overcomes them, so that nearly all who left Egypt die in the wilderness instead of entering Canaan.

The experience warns against letting appetite control obedience to God. It teaches that craving flesh meat brings disease and death. Health reform and temperance are needed to keep the mind clear to discern what affects the salvation of the soul.