Numbers chapter 11, part 1

After reading chapter 11:

*"The people began to complain in the hearing of  Yahweh." Does this mean there is  a place out of the hearing of the lord? Well, anyway, Yahweh, that patient and loving God, sent some of his fire to burn a few of them up on the outskirts of the camp. Moses prayed on their behalf and the fire died down. If this was a true story, I would suspect Moses of starting those fires himself.

*Next, we read that the Israelites are getting awfully tired of eating manna.   They want meat and vegetables, anything but manna. OK, this is just silly. We have recently read chapters and chapters about dozens of kinds of meat and grain sacrifices. There were goats, and sheep, and bulls,  and pigeons, and doves to be sacrificed. Where did they come from?  What were the animals  eating? Who was eating them? It wasn't Yahweh. Was it the Levites? Not only that, in Leviticus 17 we were told that some people were sacrificing (slaughtering) animals out in the fields. Clearly there is a contradiction here.

*Then we get another description of manna. This time it tastes like something made with olive oil instead of wafers made with honey back in Exodus chapter 16. One wonders what the nutritional value of manna was, especially since it did not satisfy the Israelites.

*Moses heard all those hundreds of thousands of people wailing at the entrance of their tents. Yahweh got angry.  Moses was peeved. He wanted to know why he had to be the babysitter in charge of so many babies. How was he going to get meat for these people. (Um, what about all those animals you are carting around for sacrifices?) Moses asked God just to kill him and put him out of his misery right there. I wonder if Moses had meat to eat.

*Yahweh tells Moses to call together 70 of the elders of Israel. He will give them the same spirit Moses has so that they can help shoulder the burden. Moses is also to tell the Israelites that tomorrow they get meat. They will have so much meat for a whole month that they will come to hate it. Moses wants to know where enough meat for six hundred thousand men, for a whole month, will come from. That's a lot of meat! Finally. This is a realistic question. Or it would be if Moses had included all the women and children. What a pesky detail. Yahweh's answer is,"You'll see."

*The seventy elders, except two, gathered at the  tabernacle and got  the Spirit. They were able to prophecy one time, that's it. The two elders who did not assemble with the others still got the spirit and prophesied. Joshua, Moses's aide, tattled on them. Moses accused Joshua of jealousy.

Edited.