Illuminated Coptic sanctuary banner

Numbers 11 - Complaining and the Seventy Elders

17 min read

Audio narrationAlso in your podcast app

This narration is from a previous version of the study and may include a combined recording of multiple chapters.

Israel has scarcely begun the journey when Egypt becomes attractive again. The people remember its food and forget what it meant to be its slaves. Beside their craving stands Moses’ exhaustion: he cannot bear the people alone. Numbers 11 distinguishes a desire that accuses God from a servant’s anguish brought to God. It shows judgment against an enslaving appetite and mercy that gives real help to the weary.

Historical and Scriptural Context

Numbers 10 ended with Moses’ prayers over the ark’s departure and rest. Here the camp tests what it means to follow that Presence. Burning, Brenton’s name for Taberah, marks the first complaint. The Graves of Lust, Kibroth Hattaavah, names the final judgment. Aseroth is Hazeroth, where Numbers 12 begins the next challenge to Moses.

The story moves from fire to food, from Moses’ burden to the sharing of the Spirit, then back to the demanded meat. God answers the burden and the appetite differently. Reading those answers together prevents us from treating every troubled voice as the same spiritual condition.

Complaint, prayer, and the quenched fire (Numbers 11:1-3; Greek/Brenton 11:1-3)

Numbering and names: The verse labels agree. “Burning” is Brenton’s translated place name for Taberah.

Numbers 11

1: And the people murmured sinfully before the Lord; and the Lord heard them and was very angry; and fire was kindled among them from the Lord, and devoured a part of the camp. 2: And the people cried to Moses: and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire was quenched. 3: And the name of that place was called Burning; for a fire was kindled among them from the Lord.

Light from the Word 🕯️

The first verse calls the murmuring sinful. It does not record the words of the complaint, so we should not invent its subject. The Lord hears, fire consumes part of the camp, and the people cry to Moses. Moses’ intercession quenches the fire. The sequence names both the seriousness of sin and the availability of prayer.

Moses does not enjoy the vindication of his leadership. He asks for the people to live. The name Burning becomes a remembrance of what occurred, so that a later generation can learn without reliving the disaster. A Christian receives this judgment as a warning against the speech that nurtures mistrust of God, not as permission to explain a neighbor’s suffering as punishment. The text identifies this particular judgment; it does not supply us with a method for diagnosing every calamity.

A remembered menu and an unbearable burden (Numbers 11:4-15; Greek/Brenton 11:4-15)

Numbering and wording: The verse labels agree. The people ask for “flesh,” meaning meat, and Brenton describes manna’s appearance as “hoarfrost” in verse 7. The visible text should control the description.

Numbers 11

4: And the mixed multitude among them lusted exceedingly; and they and the children of Israel sat down and wept and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? 5: We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt freely; and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the garlic, and the onions. 6: But now our soul is dried up; our eyes turn to nothing but to the manna. 7: And the manna is as coriander seed, and the appearance of it the appearance of hoarfrost. 8: And the people went through the field, and gathered, and ground it in the mill, or pounded it in a mortar, and baked it in a pan, and made cakes of it; and the sweetness of it was as the taste of wafer made with oil. 9: And when the dew came upon the camp by night, the manna came down upon it. 10: And Moses heard them weeping by their families, every one in his door: and the Lord was very angry; and the thing was evil in the sight of Moses. 11: And Moses said to the Lord, Why hast thou afflicted thy servant, and why have I not found grace in thy sight, that thou shouldest lay the weight of this people upon me? 12: Have I conceived all this people, or have I born them? that thou sayest to me, Take them into thy bosom, as a nurse would take her suckling, into the land which thou swarest to their fathers? 13: Whence have I flesh to give to all this people? for they weep to me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat. 14: I shall not be able to bear this people alone, for this thing is too heavy for me. 15: And if thou doest thus to me, slay me utterly, if I have found favour with thee, that I may not see my affliction.

Light from the Word 🕯️

The craving begins among the mixed multitude and spreads among Israel. That sequence identifies the onset of this complaint; it cannot make outsiders a permanent explanation for the people’s sins. Israel adopts the desire and speaks it in its own voice. We are responsible for the complaints we repeat, even when another person gives us their first words.

The remembered foods are concrete: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, garlic, and onions. There is nothing evil in those foods themselves. The distortion appears in “freely” and in the rejection of manna. The people give a menu where they should remember an Exodus. Their memory separates pleasure from bondage and then treats their present deliverance as deprivation. Passion is a dishonest historian. It remembers the taste of sin and deletes its chains.

Verses 7-9 interrupt the complaint to describe the provision the people despise. Manna can be gathered, ground, prepared, and eaten; it comes with the dew. The narrative lets God’s gift speak against their judgment of it. Gratitude begins when we attend to what is actually given rather than allowing resentment to describe it first. Numbers 21:5 will return to the complaint against the bread. The later scene shows how a desire left unhealed can speak again after other trials have intervened.

Moses hears the weeping at the doors of the families. His questions in verses 11-15 are addressed to the Lord. “Have I conceived all this people?” exposes the impossible role he feels expected to fill. Isaiah 46:3-4 speaks of God carrying His people from birth into old age; Isaiah 49:15 compares His remembrance to a mother’s care. Moses can shepherd Israel, but he cannot become its Creator and unfailing Provider.

The apostolic ministry likewise uses maternal language without claiming divine sufficiency. St. Paul speaks of travail until Christ is formed in his children (Galatians 4:19) and of tender care like a nursing mother (1 Thessalonians 2:7). Love bears real burdens. It is injured when a servant imagines that accepting help would betray love.

Moses’ plea for death is frightening. Elijah asks to die in 1 Kings 19:4, and Jonah does so in Jonah 4:3. Their circumstances differ, but Scripture refuses to hide the anguish of God’s servants. This is not advice to wish for death. A reader who recognizes that despair needs immediate human support, pastoral care, and appropriate clinical help. God answers Moses with living companions, not with the isolation his exhaustion seems to demand.

The Spirit gives companions and exceeds jealousy (Numbers 11:16-30; Greek/Brenton 11:16-30)

Numbering and names: The verse labels agree. Brenton’s Modad is NKJV’s Medad, and “Joshua the son of Naue” is Joshua son of Nun. Verse 25 says that the elders “prophesied and ceased.” It should not be quoted as a promise of ceaseless prophecy.

Numbers 11

16: And the Lord said to Moses, Gather me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom thou thyself knowest that they are the elders of the people, and their scribes; and thou shalt bring them to the tabernacle of witness, and they shall stand there with thee. 17: And I will go down, and speak there with thee; and I will take of the spirit that is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear together with thee the burden of the people, and thou shalt not bear them alone. 18: And to the people thou shalt say, Purify yourselves for the morrow, and ye shall eat flesh; for ye wept before the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: and the Lord shall allow you to eat flesh, and ye shall eat flesh. 19: Ye shall not eat one day, nor two, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days; 20: ye shall eat for a full month, until the flesh come out at your nostrils; and it shall be nausea to you, because ye disobeyed the Lord, who is among you, and wept before him, saying, What had we to do to come out of Egypt? 21: And Moses said, The people among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou saidst, I will give them flesh to eat, and they shall eat a whole month. 22: Shall sheep and oxen be slain for them, and shall it suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, and shall it suffice them? 23: And the Lord said to Moses, Shall not the hand of the Lord be fully sufficient? now shalt thou know whether my word shall come to pass to thee or not. 24: And Moses went out, and spoke the words of the Lord to the people; and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people, and he set them round about the tabernacle. 25: And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and put it upon the seventy men that were elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and ceased. 26: And there were two men left in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Modad; and the spirit rested upon them, and these were of the number of them that were enrolled, but they did not come to the tabernacle; and they prophesied in the camp. 27: And a young man ran and told Moses, and spoke, saying, Eldad and Modad prophesy in the camp. 28: And Joshua the son of Naue, who attended on Moses, the chosen one, said, My lord Moses, forbid them. 29: And Moses said to him, Art thou jealous on my account? and would that all the Lord’s people were prophets; whenever the Lord shall put his spirit upon them. 30: And Moses departed into the camp, himself and the elders of Israel.

Light from the Word 🕯️

The Lord commands Moses to gather elders he knows. Recognized responsibility and the gift of the Spirit belong together. The leaders are not selected for spectacle; they are to “bear together with thee the burden of the people.” Their gift has a purpose beyond their own experience. In the Church, spiritual gifts likewise belong to service offered to the Lord and the strengthening of His people.

God’s answer to Moses does not remove him from responsibility. It removes the word “alone.” The same burden is now shared. A servant can receive that mercy by entrusting a real task to another person, not merely asking someone to stand nearby while continuing to control everything.

The promise of meat exposes another problem. In verse 20 the Lord identifies rejection of Himself beneath the request for food: the people have disobeyed the Lord “who is among you” and asked why they came out of Egypt. Moses then questions whether enough animals or fish can be supplied. God’s answer, “Shall not the hand of the Lord be fully sufficient?”, confronts Moses’ calculation without denying his exhaustion. Compassion for the weary does not mean every conclusion reached in weariness is sound.

The Spirit rests on the gathered elders, yet Eldad and Modad also prophesy in the camp. They are enrolled but have not come to the tabernacle. Joshua wants Moses to forbid them. Moses asks, “Art thou jealous on my account?” He refuses to treat grace elsewhere as an injury to his own calling. Mark 9:38-39 presents a related Gospel scene: a disciple wishes to stop someone acting in Jesus’ name, and the Lord says not to forbid him. The parallel concerns possessiveness about God’s work, not permission to disregard doctrine or the Church’s discernment.

Moses longs for all the Lord’s people to receive His Spirit. Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:16-18 give that hope its wider fulfillment. Pentecost is not simply a larger group of extraordinary speakers. The Holy Spirit gathers and sanctifies Christ’s people, enabling them to witness and to share His life.

Gems from the Fathers 💎: The Spirit is not divided

St. Cyril of Jerusalem treats this episode directly in Catechetical Lecture 16, sections 25-26. He explains the gift to the elders without imagining the Holy Spirit as a substance cut into pieces: “not that the Spirit was divided, but that His grace was distributed in proportion to the vessels, and the capacity of the recipients.”1 He then explains Eldad and Modad as evidence that the gift comes from the Spirit rather than from Moses’ personal control. The undiminished Giver can work in several servants without diminishing any faithful calling.

Origen makes the same doctrinal distinction in Homilies on Numbers 6.2. In Rufinus’s Latin version he compares the gift to a bright lamp from which seventy further lamps are kindled. The original light suffers no loss. This is Origen’s own spiritual explanation of the elders’ gift, paraphrased here rather than quoted from an English translation.2 Sharing the work does not divide the Giver or leave Moses with less grace.

Cyril also receives Moses’ wish as a prophetic anticipation of Pentecost. That reading makes generosity toward another servant’s gift an act of faith in the Spirit. Jealousy says that another person’s good leaves less for me. The Church confesses a Giver whose grace cannot be exhausted in that way.

Desire’s gift becomes desire’s grave (Numbers 11:31-35; Greek/Brenton 11:31-35)

Numbering and names: The verse labels agree. Brenton names the place “the Graves of Lust”; NKJV uses “Kibroth Hattaavah.” “Graves of craving” is an explanatory phrase, not a quotation from either displayed text.

Numbers 11

31: And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails over from the sea; and it brought them down upon the camp a day’s journey on this side, and a day’s journey on that side, round about the camp, as it were two cubits from the earth. 32: And the people rose up all the day, and all the night, and all the next day, and gathered quails; he that gathered least, gathered ten measures; and they refreshed themselves round about the camp. 33: The flesh was yet between their teeth, before it failed, when the Lord was wroth with the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. 34: And the name of that place was called the Graves of Lust; for there they buried the people that lusted. 35: The people departed from the Graves of Lust to Aseroth; and the people halted at Aseroth.

Light from the Word 🕯️

A wind from the Lord brings the quails, and the people spend day, night, and the next day gathering. The verse describes an enormous abundance without requiring us to calculate a modern weight or reconstruct the birds’ position above the ground. The narrative’s decisive detail is simpler: the meat is still between their teeth when the plague strikes.

The demanded gift does not heal the desire that demanded it. Verse 34 names the dead by what ruled them: “the people that lusted.” St. Paul makes the Christian warning explicit in 1 Corinthians 10:6: these events teach us not to desire evil things as they did. The fault is not that the body needs food, but that appetite becomes rebellion against the Lord who feeds it.

Psalm 78:26-31 (LXX 77) recalls the wind, flesh, and judgment. Psalm 106:14-15 (LXX 105) remembers their request. Brenton renders LXX 105:15 as God sending “fulness into their souls,” while NKJV speaks of “leanness into their soul.” These English forms should not be collapsed into one quotation. The Numbers narrative supplies the warning in either case: receiving what we demand is no proof that the desire itself is good.

Gems from the Fathers 💎: Fasting and actual need

St. John Cassian, writing about ascetical discipline rather than commenting directly on the quails, distinguishes bodily need from indulgence. Institutes 5.7 says, “Bodily weakness is no hindrance to purity of heart, if only so much food is taken as the bodily weakness requires, and not what pleasure asks for.”3 This is a useful guardrail for receiving Numbers 11. Fasting should free desire for God; it should not turn contempt for bodily frailty into a badge of zeal. Cassian’s standard gives a place both to restraint and to the nourishment a weakened person actually needs.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

At Matins on Tuesday of the fifth week of Great Lent, Numbers 10:35-11:35 is read as one continuous first prophecy. It begins with the ark’s departure and rest prayers, which are Brenton 10:34-35, and continues through this chapter. The other prophecies that morning are Proverbs 3:19-4:9, Isaiah 40:1-8, Job 25:1-6, and Job 26:1-14.

Coptic Great Lent ordinarily abstains from meat and fish, with pastoral guidance for individual need. In the midst of that abstinence, the Church hears Israel longing for those foods while despising manna. As a reflection, the placement asks us to examine the heart beneath the menu. The same morning’s Isaiah reading declares the frailty of flesh and the endurance of God’s word. Bodily appetite is real, but it cannot become the ruler of truth or the measure of God’s goodness.

Christological Types and Prophecies

The manna prepares the scriptural language in which Christ reveals Himself as the Bread of Life (John 6:31-35). The elders’ gift and Moses’ longing look toward the wider outpouring named in Joel 2:28 and Acts 2. The Lord answers Moses’ inability to bear the people alone with shared grace; in Christ the Church receives many gifts from the one Spirit for a common life.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Test nostalgia by its whole truth. When a former habit becomes attractive, remember its cost as well as its pleasure. Name the deception before it grows into a complaint against present mercy.

Give ordinary grace its proper name. A daily meal, an unremarkable family kindness, the familiar prayers, and the Eucharist must not become “nothing but” through repetition. Thank the Lord for one gift you have begun to treat as an irritation.

Ask for help before isolation becomes despair. Tell a trusted person where the burden has exceeded your strength. Let one responsibility genuinely be shared. Your inability to carry everything is not proof that your service has failed.

Bless another servant’s gift. Pray for someone whose usefulness makes you feel overlooked. Ask that the Lord’s work prosper through them. Moses’ generosity gives the heart a way out of rivalry.

Lord Jesus Christ, Bread of Life, free our memory from Egypt. Sustain the exhausted, quiet the grasping heart, and make us grateful for the Spirit’s work in every faithful servant.

Footnotes

  1. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 16, section 25. Direct text 🔗. ↩

  2. Origen, Homilies on Numbers, 6.2, Rufinus’s Latin version, W. A. Baehrens, ed., Origenes Werke VII (1921). The lamp passage is paraphrased from the Latin, not quoted from a modern English translation. Text and scan 🔗. ↩

  3. St. John Cassian, Institutes, Book 5, chapter 7. Direct text 🔗. ↩

Reading statusLoading your browser-local progress
Saved only in this browser
Referenced Fathers:

Created: | Updated:

Page Connections

Backlinks