Yahweh Provides Meat From Heaven (Numbers 11:31-35).
In accordance with His second promise to Moses Yahweh now sent meat from the skies. A ruach (spirit, wind) from Yahweh brought quails to the camp in huge quantities. So in a play on words the ‘ruach' blessed both the elders and the people. But the people immediately demonstrated their unbelief. They stored the quails instead of trusting Yahweh for His daily provision (compare what some did with the manna - Exodus 16:19-20) and the quails went bad and brought a great plague.
The structure here is as follows:
a The wind of Yahweh goes forth in response to the people's craving and the quails fall in great depth (Numbers 11:31).
b The people gather the quails in great abundance (Numbers 11:32 a).
c In unbelief they store the quail meat around the camp (Numbers 11:32 b).
c While they were eating the wrath of Yahweh came on them, the result of storing the quails in unbelief (Numbers 11:33 a).
b Yahweh smites them and they receive an abundance of plague (Numbers 11:33 b).
a The place is called ‘Graves of craving' (Kibroth Hattaavah) (Numbers 11:34).
‘And there went forth a wind from Yahweh, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, about a day's journey on this side, and a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and about two cubits above the face of the earth.' As promised Yahweh sent meat for the people in abundance. Quails were driven towards the camp by ‘a ruach from Yahweh'. As already mentioned there is a parallel here with the ruach which came on the seventy elders. Yahweh's desire was to bless both with His provision. The quails came in abundance and fell to the ground beside the camp in huge quantities.
This was the second month of the year. Quails are small birds of the partridge family. Around that time of the year (March) they annually migrate northwards from Arabia and Africa and regularly come down in large quantities in the area of the Red Sea to recuperate, exhausted after their long flight. Modern examples are known of huge quantities being caught in the Sinai area during this period as they fly low over the ground. It would appear in this case that their struggle against the wind which drove them to the camp had so exhausted them that they simply collapsed in heaps. There were so many that they covered ‘a days journey' around the camp in piles a metre (three feet) high. (Some, however, see the text as signifying that they flew a metre above the ground).
‘And the people rose up all that day, and all the night, and all the next day, and gathered the quails. He who gathered least gathered ten homers. And they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.'
When the people saw this they raced to gather them, and spent about 36 hours gathering as many as they could. They gathered huge quantities and stored them around the camp. But they were so many that they could not properly dry them out. Ten homers was about 2,200 litres. What a sad state of heart is revealed here. We do not read that they became excited because the Spirit came on the elders. But we do read that when meat came they were clearly so excited that they had no time to think about what had happened to the elders. They overlooked that God had come among them in spiritual power, that the Spirit's power was being revealed. All they could think of was that there was meat to be had!
In doing so they forgot, or ignored, Yahweh's demand that they did not touch dead bodies lest they be rendered ‘unclean'. To take the exhausted quails and kill and eat them was one thing. To store them as dead meat by laying them out to dry and then partaking of them was another. It was in direct disobedience to Yahweh, and, as we now know, in a hot country was asking for trouble.
‘While the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the anger of Yahweh was kindled against the people, and Yahweh smote the people with a very great plague.'
The result was that even while they were eating them they were smitten with a great plague. This was the result of the ‘anger of Yahweh'. They were acting in gross disobedience. Had they only eaten quails which they slew and ate immediately as fresh meat they would not have suffered. But they did not trust Yahweh to continue His provision and stored the birds and then ate of their dead carcasses. Thus they rendered themselves deliberately ‘unclean', and therefore liable to ‘wrath'. And birds in such a condition, insufficiently dried out, could only spread disease.
We are intended to see the contrast between these people and the godly elders. The elders had gone into a holy place, the place of life, to receive their blessing. Their thoughts were centred on Yahweh. They enjoyed ‘life'. The people had gone ‘outside the camp' to receive flesh, and had sinned. Their thoughts were on the satisfaction of their own selfish desires. And the result was that they became entangled with ‘death', and therefore their blessing became a curse. And yet both were living together in the camp. The same is so true today. There are those who would enjoy true blessing, and while they must live in the world, they seek their blessing in His holy place, in Heaven itself. Others are filled with the desires of life, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the mind and the pride of life. And they are so taken up with these that the Spirit passes them by. We must never secularise holy things. We must choose between life and death, not compromise them.
‘And the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people that were so greedy (‘lusted').'
Here was their epitaph. The name of the place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, ‘the graves of craving' because there the people's craving led in many cases to their deaths. It was there that they buried the people who were so greedy. The mind of the flesh leads to death, the mind of the Spirit leads to life and peace (Romans 8:6). If only they had craved the Spirit it would have led them to mountains of blessing not graves of craving.
It is clear from the chiastic pattern that Numbers 11:35 belongs to the next chapter and we have interpreted accordingly.