Numbers 11

¹ Now the people set up a lament which was offensive to Yahweh’s ears, and Yahweh heard it. His anger blazed, and the fire of Yahweh burned among them: it destroyed one end of the camp.

² The people appealed to Moses, and he interceded with Yahweh and the fire died down.

³ So the place was called Taberah, because the fire of Yahweh had burned among them.

⁴ The rabble who had joined the people were overcome by greed, and the sons of Israel themselves began to wail again, ‘Who will give us meat to eat?’ they said.

⁵ ‘Think of the fish we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic!

⁶ Here we are wasting away, stripped of everything; there is nothing but manna for us to look at!’

⁷ The manna was like coriander seed, and had the appearance of bdellium.

⁸ The people went round gathering it, and ground it in a mill or crushed it with a pestle; it was then cooked in a pot and made into pancakes. It tasted like cake made with oil.

⁹ When the dew fell on the camp at night-time, the manna fell with it.

¹⁰ Moses heard the people wailing, every family at the door of its tent. The anger of Yahweh flared out, and Moses greatly worried over this.

¹¹ And he spoke to Yahweh: ‘Why do you treat your servant so badly? Why have I not found favour with you, so that you load on me the weight of all this nation?

¹² Was it I who conceived all this people, was it I who gave them birth, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, like a nurse with a baby at the breast, to the land that I swore to give their fathers”?

¹³ Where am I to find meat to give to all this people, when they come worrying me so tearfully and say, “Give us meat to eat”?

¹⁴ I am not able to carry this nation by myself alone; the weight is too much for me.

¹⁵ If this is how you want to deal with me, I would rather you killed me! If only I had found favour in your eyes, and not lived to see such misery as this!’

¹⁶ Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Gather seventy of the elders of Israel, men you know to be the people’s elders and scribes. Bring them to the Tent of Meeting, and let them stand beside you there.

¹⁷ I will come down to speak with you; and I will take some of the spirit which is on you and put it on them. So they will share with you the burden of this nation, and you will no longer have to carry it by yourself.

¹⁸ ‘To the people, say this, “Purify yourselves for tomorrow and you will have meat to eat, now that you have walled in the hearing of Yahweh and said: Who will give us meat to eat? How happy we were in Egypt! So be it! Yahweh will give you meat to eat.

¹⁹ You shall eat it not for one day only, or two, or five or ten or twenty,

²⁰ but for a full month, until you are sick of it and cannot bear the smell of it, because you have rejected Yahweh who is with you, and have wailed before him saying: Why did we ever leave Egypt?”‘

²¹ Moses said, ‘The people round me number six hundred thousand foot soldiers, and you say, “I shall give them meat to eat for a whole month”! If all the flocks and herds were slaughtered, would that be enough for them? If all the fish in the sea were gathered, would that be enough for them?’

²² Yahweh answered Moses, ‘Is the arm of Yahweh so short? You shall see whether the promise I have made to you comes true or not.’

²⁴ Moses went out and told the people what Yahweh had said. Then he gathered seventy elders of the people and brought them round the Tent.

²⁵ Yahweh came down in the Cloud. He spoke with him, but took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the spirit came on them they prophesied, but not again.

²⁶ Two men had stayed back in the camp; one was called Eldad and the other Medad. The spirit came down on them; though they had not gone to the Tent, their names were enrolled among the rest. These began to prophesy in the camp.

²⁷ The young man ran to tell this to Moses, ‘Look,’ he said ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp’.

²⁸ Then said Joshua the son of Nun, who had served Moses from his youth, ‘My Lord Moses, stop them!’

²⁹ Moses answered him, ‘Are you jealous on my account? If only the whole people of Yahweh were prophets, and Yahweh gave his Spirit to them all!’

³⁰ Then Moses went back to the camp, the elders of Israel with him.

³¹ A wind came from Yahweh and it drove quails in from the sea and brought them down on the camp. They lay for a distance of a day’s march either side of the camp, two cubits thick on the ground.

³² The people were up all that day and night and all the next day collecting quails: the least gathered by anyone was ten homers; then they spread them out round the camp.

³³ The meat was still between their teeth, not even chewed, when the anger of Yahweh blazed out against the people. Yahweh struck them with a very great plague.

³⁴ The name given to this place was Kibroth-hattaavah, because it was there that they buried the people who had indulged their greed.

³⁵ From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth, and at Hazeroth they pitched camp.