🔢WEB · Numbers 11:4
What does Numbers 11:4 mean?
"The mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?"
— Numbers 11:4 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
The people were complaining in the ears of Yahweh. When Yahweh heard it, his anger burned; and Yahweh’s fire burned among them, and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.
The people cried to Moses; and Moses prayed to Yahweh, and the fire abated.
The name of that place was called Taberah, because Yahweh’s fire burned among them.
The mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?
We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;
but now we have lost our appetite. There is nothing at all except this manna to look at.”
The manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like the appearance of bdellium.
Explanation
Numbers 11:4 describes a moment of collective discontent among the Israelites shortly after they left Egypt and began their journey through the wilderness toward the Promised Land. The verse tells us that the "mixed multitude" — a group of non-Israelites who had joined the Israelites when they left Egypt (see Exodus 12:38) — began to crave rich food, and this craving spread to the Israelites themselves. Soon the whole community was weeping and complaining, asking who would give them meat to eat. In plain terms, this is a story about contagious grumbling: a small group's dissatisfaction ignited widespread complaint among the larger community, even though God was already providing for them daily through manna.
The context is essential to understanding the verse. Numbers is traditionally attributed to Moses and covers Israel's forty years of wandering in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt. By this point in the narrative, God had already delivered the people from slavery, parted the Red Sea, given them the Law at Sinai, and was sustaining them with manna, a bread-like substance that appeared each morning (Exodus 16). The "mixed multitude" refers to foreigners, likely Egyptians or others, who left Egypt alongside the Israelites during the exodus. Their presence in the camp meant that the community was not ethnically or spiritually uniform, and it appears their appetite for the food they remembered from Egypt (referenced explicitly in verse 5 — fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic) triggered similar longings among
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