Resist the Rabble’s Rousing
A familiar story of complaints, cravings, and quail... One overlooked detail shows it’s about more than meat. (Holy Hump Day! #11)
Israel didn’t deal well during their wilderness wandering. The bulk of Moses’ five books—the Pentateuch—catalogs their repeated resistance to God’s plan for rescuing them from Egypt. One famous early example was when they tired of manna and begged for meat. It’s a chapter of ingratitude and complaint—even from Moses.
But the sentence that begins the story offers a different lesson than we usually remember about the time God flooded the camp with quail.
The first three verses of Numbers 11 tell how the Israelites complained about their hardships…again. God allowed a fire to destroy some of the outskirts of the camp. But a simple prayer from Moses brought it under control.
The next verse, we hear them whining about meat, and God sends them so much quail, they’re literally wading through it. Right?
No.
“The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat!” Numbers 11:4
The Rabble were the non-Israelites who had left Egypt with them. They were welcomed to be in the camp, but they were subject to the same laws and rules as the Israelites. It wasn’t Abraham’s descendants who started the grumbling this time, it was the others. And they weren’t just craving, as the NIV puts it. Other translations make it clear they were greedy, or lusting, after anything other than the manna God provided for their daily bread.
The discontent of a few led the majority to disdain God’s provisions. After wailing for meat, they listed all the other flavors they missed, as if they were a contestant on Alone.
“We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” Numbers 11:5-6
The danger of our discontent is that sometimes God gives us what we think we want.
God instructs Moses to tell them,
“Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’” Numbers 11:18b-20
Be careful what you whine for.
Just as important, be careful when hearing the complaints of others. The rabblerouser’s influence corrupts our contentment in two ways: it looks on what God’s provided with disdain, seeing it as not good enough, and it highlights other things as more desirable, which is a path to idolatry. It’s a powerful combo of temptation.
Don’t allow their dissatisfaction and ingratitude to seed your heart with greedy wants that go against what God has provided.
Resisting may be harder for people trying to follow God now than ever before. We’re constantly bombarded with the message of more. Advertising, social media, and sometimes even friends and family can open little cracks in our contentment if we listen too closely. And our children don’t have defenses against this rabblerousing toward unearned desire. It’s up to us to shield and teach them as we model contentment and thanksgiving.
Our path to gracious contentment is simple, but not easy:
Trust God
Enjoy His blessings to the full
Ignore the complaints of others that tempt you to stop trusting God and join their whining
How do you keep your heart right in times of temptation? How do you help your kids build up the muscle of gratitude. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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In addition to Imago Dad, Brandon Wilborn writes fantasy with spiritual themes. His current project is a series for young readers about a dog with an imagination that highlights the classic virtues of our Judeo-Christian heritage. But he’s already got a couple of fantasy books and stories available at BrandonWilborn.com