Stupidity

When I read the stories of the Israelites in the Bible, I have a hard

timing understanding how the people that God had rescued from

slavery in Egypt, showed them a land flowing with milk and honey for

them could be so flipping bone headed!

Moses goes up to get the Ten Commandments and the idiots create a

golden calf to worship. God gives them instructions for sacrifice and

worship and almost immediately they screw it up. They complain

about starving in the wilderness and God provides manna for them.

Was God providing probably the most perfect food good enough for

these bone heads? Nope. They started complaining because they

wanted meat.

“Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the

people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to

eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the

cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now

our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to

look at.” Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance

like that of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it and

ground it in handmills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and

made cakes of it. And the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked

with oil. When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell

with it. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of

the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people

and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let

them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk

with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and

put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you,

so that you may not bear it yourself alone. And say to the people,

‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you

have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat

to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give

you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day, or two

days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month,

until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you,

because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept

before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’” Then a wind

from the Lord sprang up, and it brought quail from the sea and let

them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a

day’s journey on the other side, around the camp, and about two

cubits above the ground. And the people rose all that day and all night

and all the next day, and gathered the quail. Those who gathered

least gathered ten homers. And they spread them out for themselves

all around the camp.” - Numbers 11:4-9, 16-20, 31-32 ESV

I looked up coriander seeds and my search suggested that it would have

had a lemony tang like cilantro. The appearance like bdellium suggests

a fragrant resin type appearance. I imagine, to get some variety, they

figured out how to make cakes out of it to consume. Since manna

wasn’t enough to keep them happy, they complained, and the Lord

provided meat. But it was angering him that he was providing for his

chosen people and nothing made them happy. So, the Lord told Moses

he was thinking of wiping them out and starting over…

“But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for

you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they

will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord,

are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face,

and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar

of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you kill this

people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will

say, ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the

land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the

wilderness.’ And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as

you have promised, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding

in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by

no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the

children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the

iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast

love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”

Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word.” -

Numbers 14:13-20

God’s judgement is just as sure as his love for us. God, please help me

to be less of a bone head than I’ve been up until now.