The Complaints of the People
And the people were as those who complain of evil in the ears of the LORD; and the LORD heard, and his anger burned, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed at the edge of the camp.
And the people cried out to Moses; and Moses prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down.
And the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD had burned among them.
And the rabble that was in their midst craved a craving; and the sons of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will feed us meat?
We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for nothing — the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.
But now our soul is dried up. There is nothing at all — nothing but this manna before our eyes.”
Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like the appearance of bdellium.
The people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills or crushed it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made it into cakes; and its taste was like the taste of cakes baked with oil.
And when the dew came down on the camp by night, the manna came down on it.
The Complaint of Moses
And Moses heard the people weeping by their families, each man at the door of his tent; and the anger of the LORD burned greatly, and in the eyes of Moses it was evil.
And Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you done evil to your servant, and why have I not found favor in your eyes, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?
Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to their fathers?
From where do I have meat to give to all this people? For they weep to me, saying, ‘Give us meat, and let us eat.’
I am not able, I alone, to carry all this people — for it is too heavy for me.
And if this is how you deal with me, kill me now, kill me — if I have found favor in your eyes — and do not let me see my misery.”
Seventy Elders Anointed
And the LORD said to Moses, “Gather to me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be elders of the people and its officers; and take them to the Tent of Meeting, and let them station themselves there with you.
And I will come down and speak with you there; and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall carry the burden of the people with you, and you shall not carry it alone.
And to the people you shall say: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, ‘Who will feed us meat? For it was good for us in Egypt.’ And the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat.
Not one day shall you eat, and not two days, and not five days, and not ten days, and not twenty days —
but a whole month of days, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the LORD who is in your midst, and wept before his face, saying, ‘Why did we ever come out of Egypt?’”
And Moses said, “Six hundred thousand men on foot are the people in whose midst I am — and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, and they shall eat a whole month of days.’
Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to be enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered for them, to be enough for them?”
And the LORD said to Moses, “Is the hand of the LORD too short? Now you shall see whether my word happens to you or not.”
And Moses went out and spoke to the people the words of the LORD; and he gathered seventy men from the elders of the people, and stood them around the tent.
And the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him; and he took some of the spirit that was on him, and put it on the seventy men, the elders. And it was, when the spirit rested on them, that they prophesied — but they did not continue.
And two men remained in the camp — the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the second was Medad — and the spirit rested on them; they were among those written down, but they had not gone out to the tent. And they prophesied in the camp.
And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
And Joshua the son of Nun, the minister of Moses from his youth, answered and said, “My lord Moses, restrain them.”
And Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets — that the LORD would put his spirit on them!”
And Moses withdrew to the camp, he and the elders of Israel.
The Quail and the Plague
And a wind set out from the LORD, and drove quail in from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp, and about two cubits deep on the face of the land.
And the people rose up all that day, and all the night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail — the one gathering least gathered ten homers — and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.
The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague.
And the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved.
From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth; and they stayed at Hazeroth.