Numbers 11–13

1Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the LORD, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the LORD blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

2And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down.

3So that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD had burned among them.

4Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?

5We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, 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 the LORD was kindled greatly, and Moses was also displeased.

11So Moses asked the LORD, “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 the LORD said to Moses, “Bring Me seventy of the elders of Israel known to you as leaders and officers of the people. 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 the LORD, saying: ‘Who will feed us meat? For we were better off in Egypt!’ Therefore the LORD 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 the LORD, 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 herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?”

23The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’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 the LORD, and he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and had them stand around the tent.

25Then the LORD 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 youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”

29But Moses replied, “Are you jealous on my account? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would place His Spirit on them!”

30Then Moses returned to the camp, along with the elders of Israel.

31Now a wind sent by the LORD came up, drove in quail from the sea, and brought them near the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground, for a day’s journey in every direction around the camp.

32All that day and night, and all the next day, the people stayed up 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 the LORD burned against the people, and the LORD struck them with a severe plague.

34So they called that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

35From Kibroth-hattaavah the people moved on to Hazeroth, where they remained for some time.

1Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife.

2“Does the LORD speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the LORD heard this.

3Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth.

4And suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three, come out to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three went out,

5and the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, stood at the entrance to the Tent, and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them had stepped forward,

6He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, will reveal Myself to him in a vision; I will speak to him in a dream.

7But this is not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house.

8I speak with him face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you unafraid to speak against My servant Moses?”

9So the anger of the LORD burned against them, and He departed.

10As the cloud lifted from above the Tent, suddenly Miriam became leprous, white as snow. Aaron turned toward her, saw that she was leprous,

11and said to Moses, “My lord, please do not hold against us this sin we have so foolishly committed.

12Please do not let her be like a stillborn infant whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.”

13So Moses cried out to the LORD, “O God, please heal her!”

14But the LORD answered Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Let her be confined outside the camp for seven days; after that she may be brought back in.”

15So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until she was brought in again.

16After that, the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the Wilderness of Paran.

1And the LORD said to Moses,

2“Send out for yourself men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each of their fathers’ tribes send one man who is a leader among them.”

3So at the command of the LORD, Moses sent them out from the Wilderness of Paran. All the men were leaders of the Israelites,

4and these were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;

5from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori;

6from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh;

7from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph;

8from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;

9from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu;

10from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi;

11from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi;

12from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli;

13from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael;

14from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi;

15and from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.

16These were the names of the men Moses sent to spy out the land; and Moses gave to Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.

17When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and into the hill country.

18See what the land is like and whether its people are strong or weak, few or many.

19Is the land where they live good or bad? Are the cities where they dwell open camps or fortifications?

20Is the soil fertile or unproductive? Are there trees in it or not? Be courageous and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)

21So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.

22They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, dwelled. It had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

23When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which they carried on a pole between two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs.

24Because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut there, that place was called the Valley of Eshcol.

25After forty days the men returned from spying out the land,

26and they went back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

27And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

28Nevertheless, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are large and fortified. We even saw the descendants of Anak there.

29The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”

30Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it!”

31But the men who had gone up with him replied, “We cannot go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are!”

32So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had spied out: “The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature.

33We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”