And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.
When the people complained ... Unaccustomed to the fatigues of travel, and wandering into the depths of a desert, less mountainous but far more gloomy and desolate than that of Sinai, without any near prospect of the rich country that had been promised, they fell into a state of vehement discontent, which was vented at these, irksome and apparently fruitless journeyings. 'There is considerable difficulty in tracing the course of their matchings on their departure from Sinai. But comparing the account in Numbers 33:1-56 of "their goings out, which Moses wrote by the commandment of Yahweh," with the details elsewhere given, it can be very nearly, if not exactly, ascertained. And taking the result of this comparison, and following them by means of it to the end of their "wanderings," we find a coincidence, which is absolutely perfect between the details of the narrative and the respective localities in the peninsula to which they are assigned. Those stages of their journey where the people are represented as suffering and exhausted in their enterprise, and consequently as desirous to abandon it, are even now recognized as just the distressing stages in a route which, through a considerable part of it, would not entail upon them excessive fatigue, or involve them in unbearable privations. When the history alludes to supernatural help, it represents the people being then in a position where such help would evidently be required for such a multitude. With the sacred narrative in constant view at each stage through which the people are conducted in it, I have traversed the whole of the peninsula, and my praise requires me to ask for attention at this point to the results of this detailed comparison of the history itself with the nature and peculiarities of the ground on which it was transacted' (Drew's 'Examination of Colenso,' pp. 47, 48).
The displeasure of God was manifested against the ungrateful complainers by fire sent in an extraordinary manner. Commentators generally consider that by "fire" is meant lightning. Harmer ('Observ.,' vol. 4:, p. 15) supposes that the reference is rather to the Samiel or sirocco, the fiery deadly wind which sometimes prevails in the Eastern deserts, particularly in the desert lying between Egypt and Mecca, which was in part the scene of Israel's wanderings. The appearance of this wind is, according to Chardin, 'red and fiery, and kills those it strikes by a kind of stifling heat, especially when it happens in the daytime.' 'If,' continues Harmer, 'a wind of this description killed any member of the Israelites, would it be any wonder that it should have been called the fire of the Lord? And would not the account that this sort of fire was quenched х tishqeea` (H8257)], sank down, subsided, better agree with such a wind than with lightning?'
It is worthy of notice, however, that the discontent seems to have been confined to the extremities of the camp, where, in all likelihood, "the mixed multitude" had their station. At the intercession of Moses the appalling judgment ceased, and the name given to the place, "Taberah" (a burning), remained ever after a monument of national sin and punishment (see the notes at Numbers 11:34-35). The site of Taberah has not yet been identified; but it seems to have been the first stopping place on their leaving Sinai, and lay in a northeasterly direction, near the western side of the Tih range.