Archive -> March 13, 2004

God and the lusting Israelites

Numbers 11:1-6, King James Mistranslation, 1611 AD
And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp. And the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the LORD, the fire was quenched. And he called the name of the place Taberah: because the fire of the LORD burnt among them.

And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

Couldn’t God have just cut the theatrics and given his chosen people food? No, he’d rather starve the Israelites for days and then drop something on them, like mildew (manna), so they would appreciate it as though it were a chicken sandwich. Notice that God burned some of the Children of Israel because they were complaining about the living conditions under his guidance. . . . They got straight to the point and asked Yahweh, why did you take us from a land where we were prospering and put us in the wilderness with nothing to eat?

An example of this today would be a child asking his mother, “Why would you take me away from my father (Egypt), who is providing for me, so that I may be with you whose living in a dump (the wilderness) just so that you can fulfill your own selfish wants and try to make me give you the same reverence that I was giving my father who is doing something for me (God)?” There is no point in suffering. As a real parent, you will put your emotions aside and do only what is best for the child. If he is happy where he is and free of danger, wouldn’t you leave the child where he is and let him love you from a distance?

For those of you who try to vamp down on the word lusting and say that is the reason why they were suffering, the Aramic (Hebrew) word that is used for lusting is tahawaw which means “desire, wish, longing of one’s heart” from the root word awwaw meaning, “desire, incline, crave, long for, to sigh, to want.” It has nothing to do with sex and lust. They were lusting after food because they were in the wilderness starving to death.

Excerpted from Is There A God? by Dr. Malachi Z. York-El