NUMBERS 11
It is very sobering to us all that evidence of an evil heart of unbelief should so soon appear in people who had been the subjects of so much divine favour. “And it came to pass that when the people murmured, it was evil in the ears of Jehovah” (verse 1). They “became like men complaining of evil”, as the margin reads. They were not at all pleased with God’s ordering, or His leading, or with His provisions for them.
We must not read this merely as history. “These things happened as types of us ... . Now all these things happened to them as types, and have been written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come” (1 Corinthians 10:6,11). Indeed many of the things written in this and the following chapters [p. 137] are undoubtedly prophetic of what has taken place in the Christian profession.
The divine order, as presented in the preceding chapters, was perfect, but it called for continued subjection, and exercise in dependence, and this is never acceptable to the flesh. It is evident that very early in the history of the church there arose a spirit of discontent with the true order of God’s house, and in Christendom generally a human order still prevails which relieves men of exercise, but robs them of spiritual privilege and joy. All sorts of excuses are made for disregarding divine order, but to do so is really to murmur against it. This is a very serious offence against God, however lightly men may think of it. We find here that “Jehovah heard it, and his anger was kindled, and the fire of Jehovah burned among them, and consumed some in the extremity of the camp” (verse 1). The mind of the flesh is a subject of judgment, and here particularly in its discontent with divine orderings. We may see an example of this in the fact that many at Corinth were weak and infirm, and a good many had fallen asleep, because of the disregard of divine order in the assembly. The flesh in the people of God is no better than it is in the ungodly, and if we allow it to become active God has to bring home to us that He does not overlook evil in His people. His object is to purify us even “by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning” (Isaiah 4:4). Many of the people of God have found themselves at some time or other at that place on the spiritual map which is called “Taberah”, which means, Burning.
When the people cried to Moses, and Moses prayed to Jehovah, the fire abated. Again and again in this book Moses is seen as interceding for those who deserved judgment. He was the one who could estimate the seriousness of the offence more truly than anyone else,
[p. 138] but as the mediator of the covenant he knew what was in God’s heart, and could pray for the offenders as counting upon grace in the blessed God. In this he is a precious type of our Lord Jesus Christ. God intends His governmental dealings to be felt, and when they are felt there is a cry. It may not always express a very deep or intelligent sensibility, but there is enough feeling to express itself by a cry of distress. This affords opportunity for the intercession of Christ; He prays for the people of God who have come under God’s displeasure in a governmental way, but who have now been brought to feel its effects so that they cry. He prays as having the precious thoughts of God in His heart; His intercession, in this aspect of it, is occasioned by the failure, but it rises above the failure into all that of which He has been the Mediator. That cannot be invalidated, whatever may have come in on the people’s side.
God’s people have for long centuries murmured against His order by showing their preference for a human order which He never instituted, and God has always regarded this with displeasure. No doubt many in the course of the church’s history have been caused to feel that things were wrong, and that they were suffering under God’s government, and they have cried. The Lord Jesus has prayed for all such, and I believe that in answer to His intercession there has been a great abatement of God’s governmental dealings. It does not say here that the fire went out, but that it abated. There has been a state of things which God can only regard as evil, but at the same time the intercession of Christ has secured some amelioration of the severe dealings which have been merited. He has caused His fire to abate, and has brought in again and again the evidence of His compassion, and of His thoughts of faithful love. It has been so all through the history of the church. There has been much that [p. 139] was evil and called for judgment, and the fire has burned. But we cannot doubt that there has been a cry from many hearts made sensible of divine displeasure, and there has also been the intercession of Christ. By reason of these two things God has accorded a measure of relief from what would otherwise have been very severe burning, and has extended mercy in remarkable ways. We have only to think of God’s movements in grace all through, notwithstanding the general departure from His order, to see how He has abated His judgments, and abounded in mercy and goodness. Much that has happened in Christendom has been the burning of God’s fire, but at the same time He has done much on the line of forbearance and sovereign goodness, and all that has been an abating of the fire. I believe everything on this line has been based on some cry from His people, and also on the continued intercession of Christ.
The secret of a good deal comes out in verse 4. “And the mixed multitude that was among them lusted”. “The mixed multitude” has been the starting point of much evil in the church. The enemy’s object from the beginning was to sow tares amongst the wheat; these are really sons of the evil one — persons whom he can use to further his own deadly work. But without being altogether sons of the evil one many have outwardly identified themselves with the people of God who have had nothing in common with them spiritually. But the people of God have the flesh in them, and this can be acted on and brought into activity by fleshly influences emanating from others. So we read again and again, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump”. An active fleshly desire in one may be the means of arousing a latent desire in many others. We see in Corinth and Galatia how quickly an evil influence spreads.
So here the lusting began with “the mixed multitude” — those who were not of the Israel of God at all-but it soon infected even true Israelites. “And the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who will give us flesh to eat? 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; and now our soul is dried up: there is nothing at all but the manna before our eyes” (verses 4, 5). The food of the world is tasty to the natural man, and if we have known it in the time past of our lives we have to watch against influences which tend to revive old tastes. We may be sure that the flesh will hanker after what suits it, so that our only security is to walk in the Spirit. If we drop down from that, we are at once on the level of the flesh, and nothing suits the flesh but Egypt’s food. It was ceasing to recognise and walk in the Spirit that opened the door to fleshly ambitions and desires, and brought the church down to the level of the world.
The discontent in verses 4, 6 is more serious, and more fundamental, than the murmuring in verse 1. There it was, apparently, discontent with divine order, but here it is aversion to all that, is pleasing to God in life for the wilderness. It has all come before Him in the life of Jesus, and His thought for us is that “the life of Jesus” should be manifested in our mortal flesh as a result of our feeding upon Him as Manna. But the flesh has no liking for the features which marked the life of Jesus here. It may pretend to approve or admire them in an abstract way, but it is altogether indisposed to assimilate them so as to find real satisfaction in them, and take character from them. Do we delight to ponder the things which made up the life of Jesus? Obedience, subjection, dependence, meekness, lowliness, the love of righteousness, the [p. 141] hatred of lawlessness, absolute separation from the world as not being of it, delight in the saints, having His portion in God, setting God continually before Him. All coming down from heaven, but manifested in a life of lowly grace here on earth, and now provided for us as food — the true Manna. It is as seen in perfection in Jesus that God gives it to us as food to satisfy and sustain. But the flesh sees nothing gratifying in it, can gather no satisfaction from it; it does not appeal to the natural tastes of man.
The flesh is not only indisposed to move practically in a life that is pleasing to God, but it has no taste for such a life when presented in Christ as food. It is a deep and searching self-discovery to find that in our flesh there is no real appreciation of what delights God when it is seen in perfection in Christ. There is no relish for it as food. A people who feed on Christ will walk even as He walked according to the measure of their feeding upon Him, but if we do not care for Him as food it is impossible that His life should characterise us practically. Despising the manna brings out that the flesh has no inward appreciation of Christ; this is a far deeper lesson than to be made conscious that we have failed practically to walk like Him.
How prophetic is this of what has come to pass in the Christian profession! The manna has been avail able all through. Indeed, we may notice that though God dealt severely with His rebellious people He never withdrew the daily supply of manna, never even threatened to withdraw it. But the flesh has never had any taste for it, so that as food it has been lightly esteemed. Only lovers of Christ can delight in Him as the food of their souls. The features of His lowly life have been known in Christendom, but how little have they been appreciated as food! They have been turned into things which men were to try to work out [p. 142] in themselves to be a credit and merit to themselves. Men have often been urged to imitate Christ, but this is a very different thing from feeding upon Him. The one occupies us with ourselves, and either results in self-righteousness or in despair. The other nourishes lovers of Christ upon His perfections, and gives power to walk even as He walked.
The grinding the manna with hand-mills, or beating it in mortars (verse 8), are very different from the baking and cooking of Exodus 16:23. The latter are typical of the legitimate exercises through which the manna becomes available as spiritual food, but the grinding and beating speak of efforts to deal with it in a human way so that it might be made acceptable to persons who did not appreciate it as divinely given. I suppose that almost every feature of the life of Jesus has been subjected to such treatment in Christendom; it has been made into something that could be the material of human effort, something for men to work out so that it might be meritorious to them, and that it might appear that flesh could take on the moral beauty of Christ. But this is an impossibility.
The Spirit of God takes occasion by this sad condition of things to tell us what the manna was like. “And the manna was as coriander seed, and its appearance as the appearance of bdellium” (verse 7). Coriander seed has fine markings, and it speaks of the minute detail with which what was pleasing to God came into expression in the life of Jesus. He lived “by every word of God” (Luke 4:4), and “every word of God” had its perfect answer in Him. “Bdellium” is only mentioned here and in Genesis 2:12. It is probably a precious stone, being spoken of along with the onyx, and it would typify the preciousness of Christ to God; He was “cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious” (1 Peter 2:4). Surely what [p. 143] is precious to God should be precious to every right-minded creature. So that to be non-appreciative of Christ is a terrible proof of a fallen and sinful state.
The taste of the manna is here said to be “as the taste of oil-cakes” or “fresh oil” (verse 8). In Exodus 16. 31 we read that “the taste of it was like cake with honey”. There the sweetness of it was emphasised — what it would be normally to a redeemed people taught by grace. But here, in presence of a sorrowful distaste for it, its spiritual character is brought out distinctively. What is of the Spirit will never be appreciated by the flesh; therefore if we seek to give place to what is of the Spirit we must walk in the continuous judgment and refusal of the flesh.
In spite of all that we have read we see divine faithfulness magnified in verse 9. While the murmurers slept, “the dew fell upon the camp by night”, and “the manna fell upon it”. “If we are unfaithful, he abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). In Exodus 16 we are told that “in the morning the dew lay round the camp”, but here it is said to fall by night. It speaks typically of the faithfulness of God as known in a dark period such as we are in now. Nothing fails on the divine side.
Moses heard the people weep (verse 10), not over their sinful lusts and murmurings, but in their vexation with God. It was a terrible down grade of evil, from murmuring to lusting, and from lusting to the passionate expression in tears of extreme vexation. The anger of Jehovah was greatly provoked, and it was also evil in the eyes of Moses. He was a faithful servant, and his feelings were in harmony with God as to the evil state of the people. For that state was such as to be intolerable.
But God’s eye is upon everything, and He can bring many different things to light by the same set of circumstances. The evil state of the people became a [p. 144] crucible in which Moses was tested. A state of general unfaithfulness brings peculiar testings upon those who are faithful; they are not exempted from the searchings of God, For the nearer anyone is to God, the greater becomes the demand for purity of motive, and that he should consider only for God. A faithful man is tried by what is evil, but this is not always purely on God’s account; it is an exceedingly difficult thing for us to get away from how things affect ourselves. And when self comes in God is not fully honoured, even though one’s moral judgment may be right.
There is something which lies nearer to the heart of God than the judgment of evil, and that is the expression of Himself in His own thoughts with regard to His people. He had said to Moses, “Carry them in thy bosom, as the nursing father beareth the suckling” (verse 12). This was how God was acting, for Moses could tell them long afterwards, “Jehovah thy God bore thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went” (Deuteronomy 1:31). God had put upon Moses the great honour of representing Him in His tender parental affection. The people were undoubtedly evil, but what was God? Had He not been bearing their burden all the time from Egypt? Had they not been in His bosom? (The word “loveth” in Deuteronomy 33:3 means to have in the bosom.)
The question of what the people were was, for the moment, a secondary one. God would deal with that presently, but He would first search out whether Moses was really answering to His mind, and to what He had said to him. Was Moses up to what he had been called to be? Was he a true representative of God in parental affection! He had to confess that he was not. He regarded it as evil, and as a burden, that God had bidden him to carry them in his bosom. “I am not able to bear all this people alone, for it is too heavy for me”. It is comparatively easy to judge evil when it comes before us in a glaring way, but oh! how difficult — nay, we might say impossible — for flesh and blood to truly represent God as He wills to be represented in this wonderful time when He is made known as the Father!
The place which Moses had, according to what God had said to him, was a beautiful picture of how divine affections would be expressed in a Man, that is, in Christ. God’s thought has ever been to express Himself in Man, and thus to draw men to Himself; “I drew them with bands of a man, with cords of love” (Hosea 11:4).
Moses was only great enough for this in virtue of the Spirit being upon him, and the evil of the people brought out his personal weakness, as it so often does in God’s servants. “Have I conceived all this people? ... I am not able to bear all this people alone, for it is too heavy for me” (verses 11 - 14). The burden was not too great for God, or for His Spirit, and He would have supported Moses as His representative, but Moses failed to rise to this great and divinely conferred dignity. Indeed, only Christ could be fully representative of God in a faithfulness and care that is absolutely unwearied. How much of ignorance and waywardness God has borne with in His people! But He does not give them up. He had even to say, “my people are bent upon backsliding from me”, and yet He says, “How shall I give thee over, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee up, Israel? ... For I am God and not man” (Hosea 11:7 - 9).
Thank God, there is One who will never say, “I am not able to bear all this people alone”. The Lord Jesus will carry His chosen ones through, notwithstanding all the contrariety of the flesh. And His Spirit expressed itself wonderfully in Paul, who Was ready to [p. 146] travail in birth even twice for his children, and who could carry “the crowd of cares pressing on me daily, the burden of all the assemblies” (2 Corinthians 11:28), without complaining that it was too heavy for him.
Jehovah met the weakness of His servant by granting him seventy men to bear the burden with him. God always has reserves which He can bring forward. He is never dependent on those whom He is pleased to use, and if they decline the honour which might be theirs, He will relieve them by putting some of it on others. He deals with us according to our faith, “I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them”. The power was not increased, but it was distributed, and it took a new form. “When the Spirit rested on them they prophesied, but they did not repeat it” (verse 25). Prophesying is an activity by which God can act morally on His people whatever their state may be. Divine faithfulness takes this form in a day of departure. When the original order which God set up is departed from, whether through human will or human weakness, He reserves to Himself liberty to speak to the consciences and hearts of His people in a prophetic way. He did it all through the history of Israel, and He has been doing it all through the history of the church. He keeps this door open by which He can reach His people.
What He causes to be spoken in the power of His Spirit will always be a word for the time, suited to meet present conditions; hence it is written, “they did not repeat it”. The states which God has had to consider and meet at different times have been very varied. I believe He has always met them in His faithfulness by giving something divinely suitable. We have the Lord’s judgment of the assemblies in Revelation 2, Revelation 3, but He also tells us that the Spirit will have something to say to the assemblies, and we [p. 147] are to hear what He is saying at any particular time. It is not a mark of wisdom to disregard the prophetic utterances of the past, but our power to hold and value what has been given in the past depends on our having an ear for the divine speaking of today. God will secure, even in a day of general evil, and when there is weakness even in the faithful, that there will be divine speaking, and our exercise should be to have it amongst us. Not merely the repetition of what has been said before (though it might be necessary to remind saints of that; 2 Peter 1:13,15), but the present speaking “as oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). In such speaking there will be a distinctive speciality on each occasion; it will not be marked by repetition.
In a day of departure and weakness Scripture would lead us to look for God’s truth to be brought home to the hearts and consciences of His people so that they may be morally affected, and know His mind. Such things as miracles and speaking with tongues are not to be desired at such a time. The “seventy” would represent “faithful men” selected by divine sovereignty, by whom God can communicate His mind in a day of departure. Their names were “written”, which implies selection; it brings in the principle of sovereignty, and we have to acknowledge this in every movement which is of God today.
Eldad and Medad had not gone out to the tent; there was it certain irregularity about them, and neglect of due order, but God did not suffer that to invalidate their selection or their gift; “they prophesied in the camp”, without being publicly associated with Moses as the others were. It could hardly have been right, for them not to go out to Moses and the tent, but God moved in His sovereignty and caused His Spirit to rest on them, even though there was this failure. In a day of departure God does not hold Himself [p. 148] bound as to what He will do. If He made it an essential condition that all should be in order before He did anything there would be nothing done at all. Thank God! He is not bound, and never will be; and His movements by the Spirit are often sovereign movements which do not justify the conditions in which He is pleased to move, but which magnify His own sovereignty in mercy.
The irregular ministry of the two brethren aroused Joshua’s envy for his lord Moses, but it brought out a beautiful spirit in Moses. “Would that all Jehovah’s people were prophets, and that Jehovah would put his Spirit upon them!” (verse 29). The fact that they prophesied was a certain diminution of honour for Moses, the consequence of his unpreparedness to carry the burden alone, but he accepted this in a lovely spirit. We see in Moses, and we might say in Paul also, how quickly a spiritual man accepts correction or adjustment; he has not to be talked to for weeks to get him to see it I These men are wonderful models for us!
The state of the people could not be over-looked by God, and we see here how He dealt with it. “And unto the people shalt thou say, Hallow yourselves for to-morrow, and ye shall eat flesh; for ye have wept in the ears of Jehovah, saying, Who will give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt; and Jehovah will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Not one day shall ye eat, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; but for a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it become loathsome unto you; because that ye have despised Jehovah who is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?” (verses 18 - 20).
One of the most solemn things in having to do with God is that if we are set upon having what the flesh [p. 149] likes we may get it until it becomes loathsome to us. God may even give what is requested in great abundance, and in a remarkable way providentially, so as to show even in such a way that His hand has not become short. We have to weigh very seriously that there is sometimes a judicial element in what God gives. “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul” (Psalm 106:15). God may be allowing us to prove that we have despised Him, and there is no true satisfaction in the thing we have longed for.
This is very admonitory to us as individuals, but it is also prophetic of what has come to pass in the Christian profession. The “flesh” which the people craved was what would suit the taste of men as men. Not necessarily bad things, as men would judge, but things that minister to natural tastes. It is figurative of all the things that have been introduced to attract people, and to keep them together. They have, to a large extent, got what they want, but oh! what spiritual leanness goes with it!
In Exodus 16 the quails were given in grace as preparatory to the manna — the quails in the evening and the manna in the morning. The felt exigencies of the people brought out the resources of divine grace. God would end the day of murmuring by enabling us to appropriate Christ as having come into death for us, so that we might begin a new day by the appropriation of Him as manna. The people did not exactly ask for flesh in Exodus 16. It was what Jehovah saw would meet the conditions, and typically prepare for the manna, all leading to the sabbath. It was a wonderful instruction in grace. Whatever state of soul there may be there is that in Christ which will divinely meet it. It is one thing to learn the resources of grace at the beginning, and to live on them, but quite another to grow weary of them and despise them. This [p. 150] latter is what we see in Numbers 11. The asking for flesh here is, in principle, apostasy, for it is a turning away from the divine provision — typically, from Christ and all that is spiritual — to what is gratifying to natural tastes.
What God gives in grace meets the existing situation divinely. But what He gives in His governmental ways is sometimes in order that things may work out to their full result, and finally come under His judgment. What we find at the end of the chapter is really the doom of apostasy. Let us beware of the first steps in that direction. If we do not walk in accord with the death of Christ, and as buried with Him, we shall be sure to lust after what is not Christ, and if we get it there will surely be a proving that the end of that is Kibroth-hattaavah — the graves of lust. If we obey “from the heart the form of teaching” into which we are instructed (Romans 6:17), we shall be preserved from the graves of lust. As buried with Christ we shall walk in newness of life, and appreciate the manna which sustains that life. There could be nothing more serious than to get into a state in which we think little of Christ. It is the state in which Judas was found, and in the Christian profession it is, in principle, apostasy.