Numbers 11-12: The People Complain

Numbers 11

The People Complain

• Despite their complaints, God supported them... God did not decide to stop them from entering the Promised Land until later. Even the punishment was that the Lord sent fire, but it just consumed the outskirts of the camp
• Moses always interceded for them despite everything
• "Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said..."
  • Mixed multitude refers to the Egyptians who were among them
  • The Egyptians incited them to lust for meat
  • The people remembered the fish and cucumbers but forgot about the whippings and beatings and humiliation and disgrace... they rejected the food of angels (Manna) in order to eat the food of the slaves

The Seventy Elders

• Moses was overwhelemed - even with his great love for them, he felt inadequate to bear the heavy responsibility. But God did not abandon him. He equipped seventy elders to support him.
• The two elders who didn't go to Moses also received the Gift of the Spirit - this is an indication from God that this "gift of the spirit" is from God not from Moses

The Lord Sends Quail

• God satisfies their craving for meat by sending the quails - not by telling them to eat from their cattle or giving them success in fishing or something, but by divine power

Numbers 12

Moses' Marriage to the Ethiopian

• Aaron and Miriam seemed to be upset that Moses did not consult them when he selected the 70 elders... they used his marriage to the Ethiopian as an opportunity to complain against him
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Aaron and Miriam's Dissent

Miriam's Leprosy