Numberschapter 11
35 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
Numbers 11 belongs to the fourth book of Moses, the record of Israel's years between Egypt and Canaan. It was kept for the generation born in the wilderness, whose parents had left Sinai in good order only days before. This chapter shows what that order met on the road, a people tired of the one food they were given and a leader tired of carrying them. Listen for how each complaint is answered, since every answer fits the thing asked for. Listen also for the Spirit given to more than one man. The chapter opens the run of trouble that ends at Kadesh.
Context
- Who
- A people three days out from the mountain and already tired of the food they were given
- What
- A narrative of the first complaints on the march from Sinai, told through two places named for what happened there.
- Where
- The Wilderness of Paran on the road north from Sinai, at Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah, with the camp moving on to Hazeroth.
- When
- The second year after the Exodus, days after the camp left Sinai, about 1445 BC on the traditional dating.
- Why
- To show that the LORD hears grumbling against His provision as a rejection of Himself, and that He shares the burden of leading among many.
Historical context
The chapter is Moses' own, and it records his own breaking point, since the man carrying the whole camp asks God to kill him rather than keep going.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is days after the column left Sinai, on the dating the text gives at Numbers 10:11. The places are two camps between Sinai and the Wilderness of Paran, each named in the chapter for what happened there.
The manna is described closely, like coriander seed, the colour of gum resin, gathered in the morning, ground in hand mills or crushed in mortars, and boiled or baked into cakes that tasted of oil. It was food every day, reliably, and it was the same food.
Fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic were all staples of the Egyptian diet, and Egyptian records and tomb paintings carry the list. Nile fish were abundant enough for labourers to eat cheaply, and onions and garlic were standard workers' rations. Their memory of Egypt was accurate and selective, since it left out the whips.
Migrating quail cross the Sinai peninsula in large numbers each spring and autumn, flying low and arriving tired enough to be taken by hand, and Egyptians harvested and salted them by the thousand. What the chapter claims beyond that is the timing, the quantity and the wind that drove them in.
Significance
First hearers learned how quickly a rescued people can describe slavery as the better life. The bread they had begged for a year earlier was the bread they now despised. They also saw a leader given help rather than replaced, and a leader who welcomed a gift given to other men. The answer Moses gave about Eldad and Medad stood over every later quarrel about who may speak for God in Israel.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi reads the chapter's first word as a verdict. The term for the people in this verse "always denotes wicked men". He sets it against the phrase My people, which Scripture uses of the worthy, citing Exodus 5:1 and Micah 6:3 (Rashi on Numbers 11:1:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 85). Rashi is quoted in this row from the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, which the corpus marks public domain. Moses' place in the scene is given as a parable. A king was angry with his son, and the son went to a friend of his father and said, "Go and ask forgiveness for me from father!" (Rashi on Numbers 11:2:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 86). The throng that craved meat is identified as the mixed multitude that had attached itself to Israel at the exodus (Rashi on Numbers 11:4:1).
The complaint about the food is read as a complaint about the law. When the people say they ate fish in Egypt for nothing, Rashi refuses the plain financial sense, since Egypt withheld even straw. He takes the word to mean free of the commands of heaven (Rashi on Numbers 11:5:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 87). Their weariness he puts in four words: "manna in the morning, manna in the evening!" (Rashi on Numbers 11:6:1). The verse that follows describes the manna as coriander seed, and Rashi reads it as God's own answer written into the text. The words: "See, ye people of the world, about what My sons were complaining, whilst as a matter of fact the manna is excellent in so many different ways!" (Rashi on Numbers 11:7:1). He cites Sifrei Bamidbar 88. The people gathered it at leisure and without exertion (Rashi on Numbers 11:8:1). The weeping by families carries two readings side by side. The families gathered to weep in public. In the rabbis' reading they wept over the marriages between close relatives that the law had closed to them (Rashi on Numbers 11:10:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 90 and Yoma 75a).
Moses' own words are handled with great care, and here the classical reading divides openly. Rashi finds the charge to carry the people in Exodus 32:34 and Exodus 6:13, where the charge is given at the risk of being stoned or insulted (Rashi on Numbers 11:12:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 91). The feminine form of one word in the fifteenth verse is read as Moses' strength failing him when God showed him the punishment to come (Rashi on Numbers 11:15:1). Then comes the question of what Moses meant by asking whether flocks and herds could suffice. Rashi carries both answers. R. Akiva takes the words at face value as doubt. He holds that God spared Moses here because he said it in private, while the words at Meribah were said in public and were not passed over. R. Simeon rejects the reading outright. He says that such a thought never entered the mind of a man of whom Scripture says he is faithful in all God's house. On his reading Moses was protesting at a gift that would kill the people who received it. His words: "Do people say to an ass, take this Kor of barley and then we will cut off thy head?" The answer Rashi records from God settles it on other ground altogether. God says, "Let them and a hundred like them perish but let not My hand appear to them to have waxed short even for a single moment" (Rashi on Numbers 11:22:1, citing Tosefta Sotah 6:4). R. Gamliel the son of R. Judah ha-Nasi then supplies the dialogue behind the next verse. In it Moses argues that the people are seeking a pretext and will complain whatever is given, oxen or sheep, venison or fowl or fish. He goes out to appease them with the words later used at Psalms 78:20, and they refuse him (Rashi on Numbers 11:23:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 95:1). A Christian reader should take the division itself as the lesson. The same corpus holds one sage reading Moses as doubting God and another holding that reading to be impossible, and neither is treated as the settled sense.
Two more readings in this chapter are the rabbis' own and are reported here as theirs. The elders Moses is told to gather are new because the first elders had died in the fire at Taberah. The tradition Rashi carries is that they had earned it at Sinai, where they beheld God and ate and drank, "like a person who nibbles his bread and at the same time addresses the king". God held the punishment back so as to leave no mourning on the day the Law was given (Rashi on Numbers 11:16:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Beha'alotcha 16). The coming down in the seventeenth verse is counted as one of ten such descents written in the Torah (Rashi on Numbers 11:17:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 93). The command to sanctify themselves is read as preparation for punishment, on the pattern of Jeremiah 12:3 (Rashi on Numbers 11:18:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 94). On who suffered longest the sources part. The Sifrei takes the month of eating as the fate of the less guilty, who wasted on their beds, and the death with the flesh between the teeth as the fate of the wicked. The Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael on Exodus 16:13 teaches the reverse, and Rashi prints both (Rashi on Numbers 11:20:1). The round figure of six hundred thousand he lets stand as a round figure. He adds that Rabbi Moses the Preacher held it exact, since only those who came out of Egypt could remember the fish of Egypt (Rashi on Numbers 11:21:1). Ibn Ezra comments at 11:3:1, 11:11:1, 11:13:1, 11:14:1, 11:19:1 and 11:24:1, and Malbim at 11:9:1. The corpus carries no English text for either under its licence, so both stand here cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here and never quoted. The Talmudic ones are eight. Berakhot 32a:5 is anchored on the second verse, Arakhin 15 on the tenth, and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 37:9 on the seventeenth. Chagigah 17b:7 stands on the twentieth, Avot DeRabbi Natan 27:4 on the twenty-eighth, and Arakhin 15b:3 on the thirty-first. Chullin 27b:9 and 105a:8 stand on the quail of the thirty-second and thirty-third.
The midrashic locators run to thirty-two. Midrash Lekach Tov carries six, at Numbers 11:3:1, 11:13:1, 11:19:1, 11:23:1, 11:30:1 and 11:35:1. Midrash Aggadah carries five, at Numbers 11:3:1, 11:11:1, 11:24:1, 11:27:1 and 11:29:1, the last two on Eldad and Medad. Ein Yaakov carries five, at Berakhot 5:8, Arakhin 3:3, Yoma 8:4 and 8:6, and Yoma 8:2 in the Glick Edition, four of them on the manna. Bamidbar Rabbah carries five, at 14:10, 15:24, 15:25, 18:6 and 19:10. Aggadat Bereshit carries four, at 2:1, 16:2, 43:4 and 45:1. Bereshit Rabbah stands at 16:2 on the manna and 97:3 on the number, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai at 12:38 and 14:12. Three more stand alone: Devarim Rabbah 1:11, Otzar Midrashim, Sefer Tagin 5:286, and Sifrei Zuta 11:36:1. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 11:1:1 to 11:23:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Simeon, their division over Numbers 11:22, as Rashi reports it from Tosefta Sotah 6:4; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 11:3:1 to 11:24:1, cited by ref because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit the text here; Malbim, Malbim on Numbers 11:9:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/11.json, the 8 Talmud and 32 Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Fire at the edge of the camp
Numbers 11:1-2
In Exodus complaint was answered with water at Marah, bread in the Wilderness of Sin, and water from the rock at Rephidim. Here the people complain, the LORD hears, and fire “consumed the outskirts of the camp”, which is the change that governs the rest of the book. Moses prays, the fire dies down, and 1 Corinthians 10:10 names complaining among the warnings for later readers.
Numbers 11:1
“See the marginal rendering. They murmured against the privations of the march. The fire of the Lord - Probably lightning; compare Psa 78:21. In the uttermost parts - Rather, in the end. The fire did not reach far into the camp. It was quickly quenched at the intercession of Moses.”
The people who had complained in the hearing of the LORD now bring their cry to Moses, and he carries it to God. Numbers 21:7 repeats the order when the people confess their sin and ask Moses to pray for them. Clarke gives the Hebrew as the fire sinking down.
Numbers 11:2
“The fire was quenched - Was sunk, or swallowed up, as in the margin. The plague, of whatever sort, ceased to act, and the people had respite.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The ground is named for what happened on it, Taberah, which is burning. Barnes points out that Taberah is missing from the list of stations in Numbers 33, so it marks a spot rather than a camp, and he reads the stop as the one chapter 33 records under the name given later at verse 34. Deuteronomy 9:22 puts Taberah at the head of a short list Moses reads back to Israel, Taberah and Massah and Kibroth-hattaavah.
We remember the fish of Egypt
Numbers 11:4-6
The craving starts with “the rabble”, the mixed crowd that left Egypt with Israel at Exodus 12:38, and the Israelites weep after them. They remember the fish “we ate freely in Egypt”, at no cost while they were slaves, and Matthew Henry notes the list leaves out the brick kilns, taskmasters and whip. Verse 6 states the grievance: “there is nothing to see but this manna!”
Numbers 11:4
“The mixed multitude - האספסף hasaphsuph, the collected or gathered people. Such as came out of Egypt with the Israelites; and are mentioned Exo 12:38. This mongrel people, who had comparatively little of the knowledge of God, feeling the difficulties and fatigues of the journey, were the first to complain; and then we find the children of Israel joined them in their complainings, and made a common cause with these demi-infidels.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:4
“We should not indulge ourselves in any desire which we cannot in faith turn into prayer, as we cannot when we ask meat for our lust, Ps. lxxviii. For this sin the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly against them, which is written for our admonition, that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted, 1 Cor. x.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Connections1 Corinthians 10:10
Clarke says every item on this list was a true delicacy of Egypt, where the Nile fish were excellent and the melons and cucumbers refreshing in the heat. At Exodus 16:3 the memory was pots of meat. It has grown into a whole market.
The Hebrew says their soul is dried up, using nephesh, the word for the whole living self. The food they scorn is the food Psalm 78:24-25 calls grain from heaven and the bread of angels. Matthew Henry names the craving lust.
Numbers 11:6
“It may be noticed that the resemblance of the manna to coriander seed was not in the color, but in the size and figure; and from its comparison to bdellium, which is either a drop of white gum or a white pearl, we are enabled to form a better idea of it.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 11:7-9
The narrative pauses to describe the manna, which answers the complaint of verse 6 without argument. It looks like “coriander seed” and “gum resin” and tastes “like pastry baked with fine oil”, where Exodus 16:31 had “wafers made with honey”. Gill takes the coriander likeness as size and shape, since coriander is dark and manna white, and verse 9 has it fall with the night dew.
Numbers 11:7
“As coriander-seed - Not for colour, for that is black, but for shape and figure. Bdellium - Is either the gum of a tree, of a white and bright colour, or rather a gem or precious stone, as the Hebrew doctors take it; and particularly a pearl wherewith the Manna manifestly agrees both in its colour, which is white, Exod. xvi, 14, and in its figure which is round.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:7
“And the manna was as coriander seed,.... Not in colour, for that is black or darkish, whereas the manna was white, as is generally observed; of which See Gill on Exo 16:31; however it might be like the coriander, because of its form and figure, being round, and because of its quantity, being small, Exo 16:14; Some think the mustard seed is meant, as Aben Ezra observes, which is the least of all seeds; it seems that the manna fell in small round grains, like to such seed.”
The handmill and the mortar are the tools of a household's daily grain, so the manna was worked like flour and made into bread. Gill describes it falling in small round grains like seed. Exodus 16:21 adds that what lay ungathered melted in the sun.
Exodus 16:13-14 tells the same event from the morning side, a layer of dew that lifted and left the flakes on the ground. Deuteronomy 8:16 counts the manna among the ways God humbled and tested Israel so that in the end he might do them good. Gill takes its small round grains from Exodus 16:14.
Moses: I cannot carry this people alone
Numbers 11:10-11
The weeping comes from “family after family” at their tent doors, which is how a complaint spreads. Two angers stand in one verse, the LORD’s “kindled greatly” and, in a milder word, Moses “displeased”. His prayer opens with a question about himself, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant?”, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say his situation can be felt though his language cannot be defended.
The word burden in this verse returns at verse 17, where the LORD promises seventy men to bear the burden of the people with Moses. Moses speaks as a man who has lost favor, though Exodus 33:17 had given him God's word that he had found it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call his situation most distressing.
Numbers 11:11
“Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant, &c.--It is impossible not to sympathize with his feelings although the tone and language of his remonstrances to God cannot be justified. He was in a most distressing situation--having a mighty multitude under his care, with no means of satisfying their clamorous demands.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 11:12-13
Moses answers with images from childbirth and nursing, “Did I conceive all these people?”, and the charge to carry them “as a nurse carries an infant”. Deuteronomy 1:31 uses the same figure of God, who carried Israel “as a man carries his son”. Verse 13 asks, “Where can I get meat for all these people?”, and Matthew Henry reads it as limiting the Holy One of Israel.
Numbers 11:12
“Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them?....”
The people weep at Moses. He hears their cry as a demand on himself, though Exodus 16:8 had told them that grumbling against Moses and Aaron was grumbling against the LORD. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture Moses with no means of meeting their clamorous demands.
Numbers 11:13
“Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people?....”
Numbers 11:14-15
Moses asks to die, “please kill me right now”, as Elijah does at 1 Kings 19:4 and Jonah at Jonah 4:3, each just after watching God act in power. Matthew Henry sets this beside Numbers 12:3, which calls Moses “a very humble man”, and says the best men fail in the grace they are most known for. God answers with seventy men to share the weight.
Moses asks for death as a mark of favor, the favor he said in verse 11 he had lost. Jewish scribal tradition lists this verse among its eighteen corrections, holding that the older text read Your wretchedness and was softened out of reverence. Matthew Henry counts the plea among the infirmities of the best.
Numbers 11:15
“Is this the meekest of all the men on the earth? The best have their infirmities, and fail sometimes in the exercise of that grace for which they are most eminent.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Seventy elders, and meat for a whole month
Numbers 11:16-17
Seventy elders had gone up the mountain with Moses at Exodus 24:9, and what is new here is that God will take “some of the Spirit that is on you” and put it on them. Clarke reports the figure of Origen and Theodoret, one lamp lighting seventy and losing none of its own light. Jewish tradition traces the later Sanhedrin to this verse, the seventy with Moses over them.
Numbers 11:16
“But the Lord also says to Moses, "Choose for yourself presbyters whom you yourself know to be presbyters." Let us examine very carefully the word of the Lord. What does that addition appear to mean, which says, "Whom you yourself know to be presbyters"? Was it not obvious to the eyes of all that he was a presbyter, that is, old, who was bearing old age in his body?”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON GENESIS 3:3patristic
Clarke reads the promise as a gracious reproof, showing Moses that the gifts already on him were enough to furnish seventy more. The LORD's promise to come down is kept at verse 25. Isaiah 63:11 remembers the days of Moses as the time God placed His Holy Spirit among His people.
Numbers 11:17
“I will take of the spirit which is upon thee - From this place Origen and Theodoret take occasion to compare Moses to a lamp, at which seventy others were lighted, without losing any of its brightness. To convince Moses that God had sufficiently qualified him for the work which he had given him to do, he tells him that of the gifts and graces which he has given him he will qualify seventy persons to bear the charge with him. This was probably intended as a gracious reproof. Query.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 11:18-20
The word that readied the nation to meet God at Exodus 19:10 returns here, “Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow”, and the meat comes as a sentence. The measure climbs from one or two days through twenty to a whole month, “until it comes out of your nostrils”. Verse 20 names the offence, “you have rejected the LORD, who is among you”, and Psalm 78:29 says “He gave them what they craved.”
One or two days of meat would have answered the craving of verse 4, and the sentence runs on past every number a man would call enough. Clarke reckons that the birds taken over two days and a night gave the month's provision this verse announces. Psalm 106:15 tells the same event.
Numbers 11:19
“Ye shall not eat one day,.... Only, as in Exo 16:12, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; but even thirty days, a whole month, as in Num 11:20.”
John Gill · Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)Reformed Baptist
The LORD who is among you names the presence dwelling at the tabernacle in the middle of the camp, as Numbers 5:3 describes it. Wishing for Egypt rejects the God who lives among them. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say the sin was made to carry its own punishment.
Numbers 11:21-23
Moses sets “600,000 men on foot” against a month of meat, a doubt Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read as a passing feeling spoken in private. God answers, “Is the LORD’s arm too short?”, a line Isaiah 50:2 and 59:1 take up. Spurgeon preached it as the glorious right hand of the LORD, with Moses as the man who counts his supplies and cannot see how the promise will be kept.
Numbers 11:21
“It is an objection like that which the disciples made, Mark viii. 4 , Whence can a man satisfy these men? Some excuse Moses here, and construe what he says as only a modest enquiry which way the supply must be expected; but it savours too much of diffidence and distrust of God to be justified.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Israel had brought large flocks and herds out of Egypt at Exodus 12:38, so Moses counts the one supply he can see. Spurgeon adds that killing them all would leave no cattle to stock the promised land. Matthew Henry hears the disciples' question at Mark 8:4 in it.
Numbers 11:22
“Shall the flocks and the herds be slain - There is certainly a considerable measure of weakness and unbelief manifested in the complaints and questions of Moses on this occasion; but his conduct appears at the same time so very simple, honest, and affectionate, that we cannot but admire it, while we wonder that he had not stronger confidence in that God whose miracles he had so often witnessed in Egypt.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The LORD answers the arithmetic of verse 22 with a question about his own arm, the outstretched arm that brought Israel out of Egypt at Exodus 6:6. The test he sets is his word, and verse 31 is its keeping. Spurgeon calls the doubt a fit of unbelief.
Numbers 11:23
“GOD had made a positive promise to Moses that for the space of a whole month he would feed the vast host in the wilderness with flesh. Moses, being overtaken by a fit of unbelief, looks to the outward means—calculates his commissariat—and is at a loss to know how the promise can be fulfilled. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain? How, then, should they have cattle wherewith to stock the land upon which they hoped soon to enter? And if they should slaughter all their beasts, there would not be food enough for ravenous people for a month.”
Would that all the LORD's people were prophets
Numbers 11:24-25
The Spirit rests on the seventy, and the last clause of verse 25 is read two ways. The King James follows the Targum in having them prophesy without ceasing, while Keil and Delitzsch and the American Standard Version read that they did so no more. Clarke takes the prophesying as public exhorting and prayer, and on either reading the day marks the men out for their office.
Numbers 11:24
“Moses went out - Out of the tabernacle, into which he entered to receive God's answers from the mercy-seat. The seventy men - They are called seventy from the stated number, though two of them were lacking, as the Apostles are called the twelve, Matt. xxvi, 20, when one of that number was absent.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Wesley reads rested as the Spirit taking up a settled abode for an office that was lasting. In the Berean reading the prophesying came once and marked the men publicly, as it marked Saul at 1 Samuel 10:10 when he was new to office. The gift for governing stayed.
Numbers 11:25
“This Spirit descended upon the seventy elders in Moses' day. My object is to prove that he knew all things and worked according to his will. The seventy elders were chosen: "The Lord then came down in the cloud, and taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, he bestowed it on the seventy elders." It was not that the Spirit was divided, but his gifts were distributed according to the vessels and the capacity of the recipients. Now there were sixty-eight present, and they prophesied. Eldad and Medad were not present.”
Cyril of Jerusalem · written before 386 · Catechetical Lecture 16.25patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:25
“When the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied - By prophesying here we are to understand their performing those civil and sacred functions for which they were qualified; exhorting the people to quiet and peaceable submission, to trust and confidence in the goodness and providence of God, would make no small part of the duties of their new office. The ideal meaning of the word נבא naba is to pray, entreat, etc. The prophet is called נביא nabi, because he prays, supplicates, in reference to God; exhorts, entreats, in reference to man. See on Gen 20:7 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 11:26-27
Eldad and Medad were “among those listed” but stayed in the camp, and the Spirit rested on them there. Matthew Henry calls their principle their praise and their practice their fault, since the order was to come out to the tent. Cyril of Jerusalem counted sixty-eight at the tent with these two absent, and read the day as showing the Spirit given by measure without being divided.
Numbers 11:26
“They, however, received the gifts of the Spirit as well as their brethren. And when Moses was urged to forbid their prophesying, his answer displayed a noble disinterestedness as well as zeal for the glory of God akin to that of our Lord (Mr 9:39).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The prophesying happened in the middle of the camp, where everyone could hear it, and the report reached Moses at a run. The Spirit reached the two men where they stood. Cyril of Jerusalem reads the day as the Spirit working according to his own will.
Numbers 11:27
“Eldad and Medad do prophesy, etc. - Eldad, they said, and Medad there, Irregularly bold, By Moses uncommission’d, dare A separate meeting hold! And still whom none but heaven will own. Men whom the world decry, Men authorized by God alone, Presume to prophesy!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)Methodist
Numbers 11:28-29
Joshua says “stop them!”, and Matthew Henry suggests he was one of the seventy and jealous for the honour of the order. Moses answers with a wish, “I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets”, which Joel 2:28 promises and Peter at Acts 2:16-18 declares fulfilled. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set the answer beside Mark 9:39, where Jesus tells John, “Do not stop him”.
Numbers 11:28
“Joshua, the son of Nun and successor of Moses, was amazed, and coming to Moses said to him, Have you heard that Eldad and Medad are prophesying? They were called and did not come forward; "Moses, my lord, stop them." I cannot forbid them, he said, for the grace is from heaven. So far am I from forbidding them that I consider it a favor. But I think you have not spoken thus in envy. Do not be overzealous on my account, because they have prophesied, and you do not yet prophesy. Await the proper time.”
Cyril of Jerusalem · written before 386 · Catechetical Lecture 16.26patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:28
“It is probable that Joshua himself was one of the seventy, which made him the more jealous for the honour of their order. He takes it for granted that they were not under any necessitating impulse, for the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets, and therefore he would have them either not to prophesy at all or to come to the tabernacle and prophesy in concert with the rest.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Wesley observes that Moses wishes all the people prophets, since a whole nation of rulers would be impossible. The man who refuses jealousy here meets it from his own brother and sister at Numbers 12:2. There God defends him.
Numbers 11:29
“Enviest thou for my sake - Art thou grieved because the gifts and graces of God are imparted to others besides me? Prophets - He saith prophets, not rulers, for that he knew was absurd and impossible. So we ought to be pleased, that God is glorified and good done, tho' to the lessening of our own honour.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 11:30-32
A wind from the LORD drives quail in from the sea, from the east and south by Psalm 78:26. Some read “two cubits above the surface of the ground” as birds heaped that deep, and Clarke as their flying height, wearied birds taken by hand. “No one gathered less than ten homers”, far past a household’s need, and they spread the birds out around the camp to keep them.
Numbers 11:30
“God, having performed his promise to Moses by giving him assessors in the government, thereby proving the power he has over the spirits of men by his Spirit, he here performs his promise to the people by giving them flesh, proving thereby his power over the inferior creatures and his dominion in the kingdom of nature.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Quail piled high, graves of craving
The Hebrew ruach names the wind here and the Spirit on the elders at verse 25, so one breath from the LORD brings both. Clarke notes that quail cross Egypt in great flocks in the spring, the season of this march. Matthew Henry reports Bishop Patrick's view that they were locusts.
Numbers 11:31
“And there went forth a wind from the Lord,.... Both an east wind and a south wind, according to Psa 78:26; either first one wind, and then another; one to bring the quails, or whatever are meant, to a certain point, and then the other to bring them to the camp of Israel; or a southeast wind, as the Jewish writers interpret it: however, it was not a common wind, but what was immediately raised by the Lord for the following purpose: and brought quails from the sea; the Red sea, from the coasts of it, not out of it.”
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 11:31
“It is evident, however, that the language describes the countless number of these quails. as it were two cubits high--Some have supposed that they fell on the ground above each other to that height--a supposition which would leave a vast quantity useless as food to the Israelites, who were forbidden to eat any animal that died of itself or from which the blood was not poured out.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 11:31
“It is uncertain what sort of animals they were; the psalmist calls them feathered fowl, or fowl of wing. The learned bishop Patrick inclines to agree with some modern writers, who think they were locusts, a delicious sort of food well known in those parts, the rather because they were brought with a wind, lay in heaps, and were dried in the sun for use.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The manna came with a measure, an omer for each person, and Exodus 16:18 says whoever gathered much had nothing left over. The quail came without one. Wesley reads the heaps as greed and distrust of God's goodness.
Numbers 11:32
“The people stood up, etc. - While these immense flocks were flying at this short distance from the ground, fatigued with the strong wind and the distance they had come, they were easily taken by the people; and as various flocks continued to succeed each other for two days and a night, enough for a month’s provision might be collected in that time.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:32
“So the meaning is not, that every Israelite had so much for his share, but that every collector gathered so much for the family, or others by whom he was intrusted. That the people did not gather for their present use only, but for a good while to come, and being greedy and distrustful of God's goodness, it is not strange if they gathered much more than they needed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 11:33-34
The plague falls “while the meat was still between their teeth”, as verse 20 had announced, and 1 Corinthians 10:6 points back to it against “craving evil things”. Clarke notes the writer never names the plague, and the place keeps the name Kibroth-hattaavah, the graves of those who craved. Matthew Henry marks the sequel at Psalm 78:32, “In spite of all this, they kept on sinning”.
Numbers 11:33
“The wrath of the Lord was kindled - In what way, and with what effects, we cannot precisely determine. Some heavy judgment fell upon those murmurers and complainers, but of what kind the sacred writer says nothing.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:33
“On a former occasion their murmurings for flesh were raised (Ex 16:1-8) because they were in want of food. Here they proceeded, not from necessity, but wanton, lustful desire; and their sin, in the righteous judgment of God, was made to carry its own punishment.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Wesley reads the name as limiting the plague to those who were inordinate in desire, since everyone ate the quail. Clarke hears this people behind Jude 16, grumblers who walk after their own desires. Jerome says the graves of craving still stood in his day.
Numbers 11:34
“Kibroth-hattaavah - The graves of lust; and thus their scandalous crime was perpetuated by the name of the place. 1. St. Jude speaks of persons who were murmurers and complainers, walking after their own lusts, Jud 1:16, and seems to have this people particularly in view, whom the sacred text calls μεμψιμοιροι, complainers of their lot. They could never be satisfied; even God himself could not please them, because they were ever preferring their own wisdom to his.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 11:34
“How is it that the graves of lust where the people fell in their devotion to flesh remain even to this day in the wilderness? Do we not read that the stupid people gorged themselves with quails until the wrath of God came upon them?”
Jerome · written before 420 · AGAINST JOVINIAN 2.17patristic
The camp moves on to Hazeroth and stays “for some time”, and Numbers 33:17 lists Hazeroth among the stations Moses recorded. Chapter 12 happens here, and Numbers 12:15 holds the camp seven days while Miriam is shut out. This chapter opened with complaint from the whole people and the next opens with complaint from Moses’ own brother and sister, so the trouble moves inward before Kadesh.
Numbers 11:35
“And the people journeyed from Kibrothhattaavah unto Hazeroth,.... After having stayed there a month or more, as is gathered from Num 11:20, and abode at Hazeroth; at least seven days, as appears from Num 12:15; which, according to Bunting (g), was eight miles from Kibrothhattaavah, or Taberah, which were the same place. (g) Travels, p. 82.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative of the march, carrying two places named for what happened on them, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Two places named for what happened on them | The chapter leaves two names on the ground. The first camp is called Taberah because the fire of the LORD burned there, and the second is called Kibroth-hattaavah, the graves of the people who craved other food. Each name is given in the verse that reports the event, so the reader learns the name and its reason in one breath. Albert Barnes points out that Taberah is missing from the list of stations in Numbers 33, which marks it as a spot rather than a camp.Albert Barnes and John Gill, Notes on the Old Testament and Exposition of the Old Testament, the works the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 11:3 is written from. | Numbers 11:3, Numbers 11:34 |
| What they remembered and what they had | Two lists stand against each other. Verse 5 names six things eaten in Egypt, the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic, which is six items counted in the Berean text of the verse. Verses 7 to 9 answer with a description of the manna, its look, its gathering, its grinding, its cooking and its taste. The same verses add that it fell with the dew before anyone in the camp was awake. The narrative stops for three verses to set the second list beside the first and argues nothing.John Gill and Keil and Delitzsch, Exposition of the Old Testament and Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, the works the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 11:7-9 is written from. | Numbers 11:5, Numbers 11:7-9 |
| Moses answers back | Moses speaks to God twice in the chapter and both speeches are questions. The first asks why the burden of all these people has been laid on him, takes up the images of conceiving and nursing a child, and ends by asking for death. The second sets six hundred thousand men on foot against a month of meat and asks whether the flocks and the herds or all the fish of the sea would be enough. God answers the first with seventy men to share the weight and the second with a question of His own about the reach of His arm.Matthew Henry with Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, the works the chapter's exposition notes on Numbers 11:12-13 and on Numbers 11:21-23 are written from. | Numbers 11:11-15, Numbers 11:21-22, Numbers 11:23 |
| His anger was kindled | The same clause marks the three strokes of the chapter. The anger of the LORD is kindled at verse 1 when the people complain, and kindled greatly at verse 10 when every family weeps at its tent door. It burns against the people at verse 33 while the meat is still between their teeth, which is three times in the Berean text of the chapter. The chapter's exposition note on verses 10 and 12 of chapter 12 sets the same sequence out, complaining answered by fire at 11:1 and craving answered by plague at 11:33. | Numbers 11:1, Numbers 11:10, Numbers 11:33 |
| The steps from one day to a whole month | The sentence of meat is measured out in steps. It climbs from one day to two, then to five, ten and twenty, and then to a whole month until the meat comes out at their nostrils. The steps do the work of an argument, since each one widens the gap between what they asked for and what they are about to be given. Verse 20 names the offence in the plainest words the chapter uses, that they have rejected the LORD who is among them.John Gill and Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old Testament and Commentary on the Whole Bible, the works the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 11:18-20 is written from. | Numbers 11:19, Numbers 11:20 |
The historical value
10 more paragraphs on the patterns
The two food lists can be checked against what is known of the countries in question. The background commentary this book already cites for the chapter records that every item remembered in verse 5 was a staple of the Egyptian diet. The same work records that Egyptian records and tomb paintings carry the list, that Nile fish were abundant enough for labourers to eat cheaply, and that onions and garlic were standard workers' rations. It also records that migrating quail cross the Sinai peninsula in large numbers each spring and autumn. They fly low and arrive tired enough to be taken by hand, and Egyptians harvested and salted them. What the chapter claims beyond that is the timing, the quantity and the wind that drove the birds in.
The debated points
The last clause of verse 25 is read two ways from the same Hebrew. The King James Version gives that the seventy prophesied and did not cease, with the Targum and the older Jewish reading behind it. Keil and Delitzsch and the American Standard Version read it as they did so no more, one day of prophecy marking the men out for the office they were to hold. The office they received stands under either reading, and the text settles neither.
What the prophesying was is a second question. Adam Clarke takes it as the public work of exhorting and praying rather than of foretelling, which fits the help the seventy were given to Moses.
The height of the quail is a third. Two cubits above the face of the ground is read by some as birds heaped that deep on the ground. Clarke and others read it as birds flying at that height, tired by the wind and easily taken by hand.
The prophecy and the New Testament's use
Moses answers Joshua with a wish that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit on them. Joel 2:28 promises that in so many words, and Peter stands up at Acts 2:16-18 and says that this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set Moses' answer beside Mark 9:39, where John forbids a man casting out devils and is told not to forbid him.
Paul takes the chapter twice as a warning. At 1 Corinthians 10:6 he points back to this ground when he tells his readers not to crave evil things as they craved. At 1 Corinthians 10:10 he names murmuring among the things written for the warning of later readers. Psalm 78:26-31 tells the same episode and says that God gave them their own desire.
The divine connection
The help given to Moses is given by transfer rather than by appointment. The LORD takes of the Spirit that is on Moses and puts it on the seventy, and they prophesy. Adam Clarke reports the figure Origen and Theodoret used for it, a lamp from which seventy lamps are lit while the first loses none of its own light. Two of the men listed, Eldad and Medad, were still in the camp when the Spirit rested on them. The gift followed the list rather than the place, and Moses refuses to have them stopped.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, on Psalm 95 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, the work the chapter's exposition note on Numbers 11:3 is written from, which reads Taberah as a spot named for the burning rather than a station of the itinerary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Charles Spurgeon; Cyril of Jerusalem; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, AGAINST JOVINIAN 2.17; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.