This week’s Parashat has so much packed in it. This is one of my favorites because of the mysteries which are revealed. I would like to focus on chapter 11 in the Book of Numbers. The people complain about the hardships and God’s anger breaks out in the form of FIRE. The people in the outskirts of the camp were burned alive. The people screamed out and Moses prayed and the FIRE stopped.
The very next verse the people complain again. This time they complain about the provision God provided. They began to despise the MANNA. The Israelites allowed the outsiders, the FOREIGN RABBLE, to speak into their lives. They allowed them to influence them into longing for their past. They complained about the MANNA the perfect food. They complained about the Angels food which supplied everything they needed to survive. What did they long for? They asked for FISH, CUCUMBERS, MELONS, LEEKS, ONIONS, and GARLIC. Everyone of these foods come from the from the ground. These foods come from below. God gave them food from above.
God becomes angry and says the people will eat so much meat they will not ask for it again. God tells them they will not eat meat for 1, 2, 5, 10, or 20 days, but they will eat meat for 30 days. Moses then asks God where will the meat come from to feed 600,000 soldiers for 30 days? Moses said if they killed all of their livestock it would not be enough. God then asks Moses if His arm has lost it’s power.
The next day a wind came and quail appeared. There was so much quail that they traveled 1 days journey in all directions. They collected the quail for 2 days. The person who collected the least collected 10 Homers. Now let’s do a little math. The only numbers we have to work with is 600,000 men of war and 10 Homers. A Homer weighs 475 pounds. That means that each person caught at least 1900 quails. If we just take the men of war and multiply 1900 quail we get a minimum of 1.14 Billion quail. We know that there were over 2 million people in the wilderness. So let’s say that the men of war equal 25% of the population. That means there are 2.4 million people in the wilderness. So if we divide 1.14 billion by 2.4 million. That means each person had a minimum of 475 birds to eat over 30 days. That means each person would have to eat 16 birds a day.
The people allowed greed to over take them. They allowed the desire of the things of this world to overcome them. Notice how God could have given them any kind of meat to eat. God could have given them any type of herding animal that was clean. However God gave them quail an animal that spends a large portion of its live above the ground. God gave them a food from above. God is speaking to us even by the food provided. God caused a disease to come upon the people that before they even finished chewing the meat they died. Some commentators say they didn’t finish draining the blood before they began to eat the meat.
The other thing I would like you to see about the MANNA is that they took what was perfect and manipulated it. The word tells us that they began to grind the MANNA and bake it into cakes. They took God’s perfect gift and put man’s spin on it. How many people today have taken God word or a promise He has given them and manipulated it to build their own kingdom. Now is the time to REPENT and set things right with the KING OF THE UNIVERSE.
