Numbers 11:15

And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.

In the wilderness to prove Israel, meat was withheld in great measure while healthful food was given freely — bread rained from heaven to eat freely, even angels' food, and purest water out of the flinty rock — with covenant that if they obeyed in all things no disease would be put upon them. Israel was not satisfied but wept in the door of their tents and complained throughout their families, murmuring against Moses and against God. They longed and mourned for flesh meat and wished themselves back in Egypt by the fleshpots, preferring slavery and even death rather than be deprived of meat, and appetite and craving thus tested them.

Moses had been placed to the people as a nursing father who should make the sufferings of the people his own, and he felt his weakness and felt the greatness of the work committed to him as no other man had ever felt it. Hearing the weeping and complaining, he became displeased, distressed and overwhelmed by the unsubmissive spirit, the continual disobedience, and the murmurings against God's commands and against God himself. He declared he was not able to bear all this responsibility alone because it was too heavy for him.

He laid before the Lord the difficulty of his situation and prayed to be killed at once, out of hand, if he had found favor in His sight, rather than continue in such misery. He asked this specifically so as not to see his wretchedness, rather than witness Israel's misery and disgrace as by their perverseness they drew down judgments upon themselves. He would rather die than see that ruin while the enemies of God rejoiced in their destruction.

That prayer nearly echoed the people's murmuring against God and did him no honor, because he failed to trust fully in God's power and care. His burden could have been borne had he relied on God, since God was the true worker and Moses only the instrument. The burden was not meant to rest on one person alone, and God divided it among seventy men, seventy judges and elders appointed to help him bear the people.

Aaron and Miriam, who had been chosen to aid Moses and by whom the Lord had also spoken, thought they bore the burden of the work as well as Moses. They therefore saw no real need for the seventy and questioned why he complained. In truth Aaron had shown his weakness by yielding to the people and making a molten calf in Moses' absence, while God had ever been Moses' counselor.

In anger at their lustful appetite God gave them flesh to gratify them, granting that vast multitude quails in abundance. Then He let them reap the result of transgression without working a miracle to preserve life, sending plague while the flesh was still between their teeth. Great numbers, thousands of their number, died eating the meat they lusted. The episode teaches that He is displeased when people let appetite control them, that Satan overthrew Israel through indulgence in appetite, and that temperance in eating and drinking and becoming health reformers matters for clearer minds to discern what does and does not affect the salvation of the soul.

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