Wading through Quail

So I have been reading through the book of Numbers lately (the one in the Bible). It has been good to look at it again, as I usually breeze through whole junks of the OT when I am doing devotional. I mean...come on...who reads Numbers when you have a Pauline epistle just a few hundred pages forward? But it has been good. In typical "Scripter" fashion, I have been drawing many neat lessons and parallels from the text. In typical "Scripter" fashion, most of these have been horribly useless or absurd. For example, I was stunned by this passage in Numbers 11:31-35. The people of Israel had been complaining bitterly about all the stupid Manna they had to eat--why, God, couldn't you send some meat! Moses is getting sick of hearing them complain and cries out to God in despair. God gives him elders to help minister to the needs of the people (lesson: God provides, but often takes us to the very edge of our comfort zone to force us to rely on him). But, more so, he promises to give the people meat. Yay! That is great, right? Wrong. He promises a whole month's worth of meat. He promised meat until "it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you" (Numbers 11:20). And he was true to form: He sent quail on the land and they died over the camp spreading "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" (11:31). Imagine that! Just imagine it for one second. Now, my Hebrew measurements aren't exact. But two cubits is about 36 inches deep--that's 3 feet! Unbelievable, small children could drown in that mass of Quail. Imagine wading through it. What a smell! What a mess! Quail, three feet high, as far as the eye could see--a day's journey!

The lesson of the story. Be careful what you ask for...you just might get it :-).

In Christ,

Chris