Psalm 78:28-29

Psalm 78:28-29

God satisfies cravings!

The quantities involved in the heavenly meat delivery, described in these verses, are staggering. Numbers 11 tells us that 600,000 men were in the Israelite camp in the wilderness, when the quail / grouse fell from heaven. Add the women and children, and we have a lot of people. According to the account, the birds covered the camp up to an area the size of a day’s walk in any direction! Let’s suggest that a day’s walk might be up to 10 miles, but it could be up to 30miles! In addition, the birds fell in such numbers that they piled up to a metre deep and “No one gathered less that ten homers” – that is 1 ¾ tons each or over 1 million tons of quail!! 

I would imagine that the first quail pie was exceedingly good, followed by roasted quail, baked quail and then quail soup. They had quail for breakfast, lunch and supper and there was still a huge heap of the birds that were untouched. The deliveries kept arriving, every day, until the whole camp was sick to death (literally) of quail!  

Read Numbers 11 carefully and you will find that it was not the craving for meat that made God angry with the people, it was their longing to go back to Egypt! After all that He had done for them, the people still wanted to return to slavery and the perceived safety of their lives in that oppressive and pagan country. No wonder the Lord was mad with them! 

So, was the deluge of meat a fit of heavenly pique? Well, do our children drive us mad with their constant moaning and complaining? Of course they do. And do we have to give into their demands? Yes, sometimes we do, if we are to keep them quiet, not least because we want them to understand that they can trust us and we will meet their needs, but they don’t have to keep moaning about it. It seems God is no different!

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