Chapter 11
1Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of AO and when He heard [them] His anger was kindled and fire from AO blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.
2And the people cried out to Moses and he prayed to AO and the fire died down.
3So that place was called Taberah because the fire had burned among them.
4Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food and the Israelites wept again and said, “Who will feed us meat?
5We remember the fish we ate in Egypt freely along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.
6But now our appetite is gone, there is nothing to see but this manna!”
7Now the manna resembled coriander seed and its appearance was like that of gum resin.
8The people walked around and gathered it, ground it on a handmill or crushed it in a mortar then boiled it in a cooking pot or shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry baked with fine oil.
9When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.
10Then Moses heard the people of family after family weeping at the entrances to their tents and the anger of AO was kindled greatly and Moses was also displeased.
11So Moses asked AO, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant? Why have I not found favor in Your sight that You have laid upon me the burden of all these people?
12Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth so that You should tell me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant,’ to the land that You swore to give their fathers?
13Where can I get meat for all these people? For they keep crying out to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’
14I cannot carry all these people by myself, [it is] too burdensome for me.
15If this is how You are going to treat me, please kill me right now—if I have found favor in Your eyes—and let me not see my own wretchedness.”
16Then AO said to Moses, “Bring Me seventy of the elders of Israel known to you as leaders of the people and officers. Bring them to the Tent of Meeting and have them stand there with you.
17And I will come down and speak with you there and I will take some of the Spirit that [is] on you and put [that Spirit] on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.
18And say to the people: “Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you will eat meat because you have cried out in the hearing of AO saying: ‘Who will feed us meat? For we were better off in Egypt!’ Therefore AO will give you meat and you will eat.
19You will eat it not for one or two days nor for five or ten or twenty days
20but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and makes you nauseous—because you have rejected AO who is among you and have cried out before Him saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”
21But Moses replied, “Here I am among 600,000 {} men on foot yet You say, ‘I will give them meat and they will eat for a month.’
22If [all our] flocks and heads were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?”
23AO answered Moses, “Is AO’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not My word will come to pass.”
24So Moses went out and relayed to the people the words of AO and he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and had them stand around the tent.
25Then AO came down in the cloud and spoke to him and He took some of the Spirit that was on [Moses] and placed that Spirit on the seventy elders. As the Spirit rested on them they prophesied—but they never did so again.
26Two men, however, had remained in the camp—one named Eldad and the other Medad—and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those listed but they had not gone out to the tent and they prophesied in the camp.
27A young man ran and reported to Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28Joshua, son of Nun, the attendant to Moses since you spoke up and said, “Moses my lord stop them!”
29But Moses replied, “Are you jealous on my account? I wish that all AO’s people were prophets and that AO would place His Spirit on them!”
30Then Moses returned to the camp along with the elders of Israel.
31Now a wind came up from AO, drove in quail sent by the sea and brought them near the camp for a day’s journey in every direction around the camp about two cubits above the surface of the ground.
32All the people stayed up that day and all the next day and night gathering the quail. No one gathered less than ten homers and they spread them out all around the camp.
33But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of AO burned against the people and AO struck them with a severe plague.
34So they called that place Kibroth-hattaavah because there they buried the people who had craved other food.