🔢WEB · Numbers 11:6
What does Numbers 11:6 mean?
"but now we have lost our appetite. There is nothing at all except this manna to look at.”"
— Numbers 11:6 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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.
The people went around, gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it. Its taste was like the taste of fresh oil.
When the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.
Explanation
Numbers 11:6 captures the Israelites' complaint during their wilderness journey after the Exodus from Egypt. In plain language, the people are saying they've lost their desire to eat because manna, the food God miraculously provided each day, is the only thing available to them. They're tired of it and feel there's nothing else to look forward to at mealtime. This complaint follows verses where the Israelites nostalgically recall the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic they ate in Egypt, romanticizing their former slavery while forgetting its brutality.
The book of Numbers records Israel's forty years of wandering in the wilderness between Sinai and the Promised Land, traditionally attributed to Moses. This particular episode occurs early in that journey, not long after God delivered the people from Egyptian bondage and began sustaining them with manna, described elsewhere in Scripture as bread from heaven. The context is one of repeated grumbling—this is not an isolated incident but part of a pattern where the Israelites respond to hardship and monotony with complaint rather than trust. Their words in verse 6 express weariness with God's provision, even though that provision was miraculous and sufficient for their needs.
Theologically, this verse reveals a recurring human tendency: taking God's faithful provision for granted and longing for something else simply because it's different or because memory has softened the harshness of the past. The Israelites had real freedom, daily sustenance, and God's presence among them, yet they focused on what they lacked rather than what they had received. Their compl
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