Graves of Craving

I am a picky eater. A very picky eater. There have been many times in my life where wonderful food was placed in front of me, by no work of my own hands or any effort on my part, and yet I rejected it and complained about it. Though this makes me sound snobbish, selfish, ungrateful, and rude, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. The account we have in Numbers 11 is a similar one, though on a grander scale with much more at stake.

Israel has been rescued from slavery and delivered by God. He took care of them, providing manna (bread from heaven) for everyone. Exodus 16:17-18 tells us that everyone received exactly what they needed, no more and no less. Yet they began to complain. Even though the manna was sweet and delicious and tasted like “a pastry cooked with the finest oil”, they were not content. They craved meat and complained about what they had been given. Their leader Moses was burdened so much by their complaints and discontent that he cries out, “I can’t carry all these people by myself. They are too much for me. If you are going to treat me like this, please kill me right now.” God heard the cry of his faithful leader and lightened his spiritual burden of caring for such a great number of discontent people.

However, God did not respond so gently to the complainers. They recalled the “Free fish [they] ate in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.” Free? They were enslaved! They worked from sunup till sundown, being beaten and whipped and punished as slaves. No food they enjoyed in slavery was truly free. Now, ironically, after being delivered by God and rescued from that slavery, and given truly free food, exactly how much they needed, they still complained. We do this too often today – God has rescued us from the slavery of sin has given us exactly what we need, and yet as free people we crave the earthly pleasures that we had in slavery. And how will it turn out for us?

God responds by giving the complaining people exactly what they want, meat and lots of it. He stirs up a wind that brings countless quail to the feet of the people. In fact, there was so much, the people had to walk for an entire day just to find land that wasn’t filled with meat. The sinful, complaining, discontent people got exactly what they wanted. But, “While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord’s anger burned against the people, and the Lord struck them with a very severe plague.” They even named the place “Graves of Craving” because of the disease and death that came from the meat they had so greatly desired. Sometimes God gives sinfully discontent people with twisted notions of what they need versus what they want, exactly what they want, and the end result is plague and death.

Be careful that you do not become sinfully discontent, craving the false freedom and false pleasure of slavery, for God may just give you exactly what you want.