Numbers 11
Open in the reader1Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of He-Who-Is, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from He-Who-Is blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.
2And the people cried out to Drawn-Out, and he prayed to He-Who-Is, and the fire died down.
3So that place was called Burning, because the fire of He-Who-Is had burned among them.
4Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the children of Strives-with-God wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?
5We remember the fish we ate freely in Two-Straits, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.
6But now our appetite is gone; there is nothing to see but this manna!”
7Now the manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of gum resin.
8The people walked around and gathered it, ground it on a handmill or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot or shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry baked with fine oil.
9When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.
10Then Drawn-Out heard the people of family after family weeping at the entrances to their tents, and the anger of He-Who-Is was kindled greatly, and Drawn-Out was also displeased.
11So Drawn-Out asked He-Who-Is, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant? Why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid upon me the burden of all these people?
12Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth, so that You should tell me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries an infant,’ to the land that You swore to give their fathers?
13Where can I get meat for all these people? For they keep crying out to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’
14I cannot carry all these people by myself; it is too burdensome for me.
15If this is how You are going to treat me, please kill me right now—if I have found favor in Your eyes—and let me not see my own wretchedness.”
16Then He-Who-Is said to Drawn-Out, “Bring Me seventy of the elders of Strives-with-God known to you as leaders and officers of the people. Bring them to the Tent of Meeting and have them stand there with you.
17And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put that Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.
18And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, because you have cried out in the hearing of He-Who-Is, saying: ‘Who will feed us meat? For we were better off in Two-Straits!’ Therefore He-Who-Is will give you meat, and you will eat.
19You will eat it not for one or two days, nor for five or ten or twenty days,
20but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and makes you nauseous—because you have rejected He-Who-Is, who is among you, and have cried out before Him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Two-Straits?’”
21But Drawn-Out replied, “Here I am among 600,000 men on foot, yet You say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat for a month.’
22If all our flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the Sea were caught for them, would they have enough?”
23He-Who-Is answered Drawn-Out, “Is He-Who-Is’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not My word will come to pass.”
24So Drawn-Out went out and relayed to the people the words of He-Who-Is, and he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and had them stand around the tent.
25Then He-Who-Is came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and He took some of the Spirit that was on Drawn-Out and placed that Spirit on the seventy elders. As the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but they never did so again.
26Two men, however, had remained in the camp—one named God-Has-Loved and the other Beloved—and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the tent, and they prophesied in the camp.
27A young man ran and reported to Drawn-Out, “God-Has-Loved and Beloved are prophesying in the camp.”
28He-Who-Is-Saves son of Nun, the attendant to Drawn-Out since youth, spoke up and said, “Drawn-Out, my lord, stop them!”
29But Drawn-Out replied, “Are you jealous on my account? I wish that all He-Who-Is’s people were prophets and that He-Who-Is would place His Spirit on them!”
30Then Drawn-Out returned to the camp, along with the elders of Strives-with-God.
31Now a wind sent by He-Who-Is came up, drove in quail from the Sea, and brought them near the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground, for a day’s journey in every direction around the camp.
32All that day and night, and all the next day, the people stayed up gathering the quail. No one gathered less than ten homers, and they spread them out all around the camp.
33But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of He-Who-Is burned against the people, and He-Who-Is struck them with a severe plague.
34So they called that place Graves-of-Longing, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
35From Graves-of-Longing the people moved on to Settlements, where they remained for some time.