At this point, the people were starting to complain about their hardships. When the Lord heard their complaints, he became very angry. The fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. That place was called Taberah (burning), because fire from the Lord had burned among them.
The first ten chapters of Numbers repeatedly emphasized the complete obedience of Moses and the people to the dictates of the Lord. But only three days into their march, the people reverted to disloyal complaints. They had expressed the same complaints a year earlier only three days after their deliverance at the waters of the Red Sea. By God’s mercy, this purging fire was limited to the outskirts of the camp.
The people continued to whine and were craving other food besides manna. Wailing that they wanted meat and other food to eat like they had in Egypt; fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.
The manna was like coriander seed and the people gathered it up. They cooked it in a pot or they would use it to make cakes. “When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.”
Moses heard the people wailing at the entrance of his tent. The Lord became exceedingly angry. Moses asked the Lord,
“Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries and infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers. Where can I get meat for all these people? I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now. If I have found favor in your eyes, do not let me face my ruin.”
-Numbers 11:11-15
The Lord told Moses to bring him 70 of Israel’s elders who were known as leaders and officials. The Lord would come down and meet them at the tent of meeting, and would take the Spirit that is on Moses and place it on them. They would help carry out the burden of the people so Moses would not have to continue carrying it alone.
The Lord said to tell the people to consecrate themselves and prepare to eat meat the next day. There would not just be meat for a day, or two, or five, or ten, or twenty days; but they would have meat for a whole month, until it came out of their nostrils and they loathed it, because they had rejected the Lord.
A wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. All that day and night and the next day, the people went out and gathered the quail. They spread it all throughout the camp. But, while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.
That place was named Kibroth Hattaavah (graves of craving), because there they buried the people that had craved other food.
At this point Aaron and Miriam started talking about Moses and his Cushite wife, but mainly I think they were jealous of Moses. They wondered why the Lord had only spoken through Moses and thought the Lord had spoken through them too. The Lord heard this and was angry, because Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth.
The Lord told Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to all go to the tent of meeting. The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance. He summoned Aaron and Miriam and told them to listen to his words.
“When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions. I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
-Numbers 12:6-8
The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed. When the cloud lifted from above the tent, they saw that Miriam was leprous. Aaron begged Moses to not let this happen to her. Moses asked the Lord to help her. The Lord replied by putting her outside of the camp, disgraced, for seven days. The people did not move on until she came back. Once she did, they set out and camped in the Desert of Paran.
The Lord told Moses to send men out as spies to explore the land of Canaan, which he was giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe, a leader was chosen. They were instructed to go out and explore the land to see what it was like and if the people who live there were strong or weak, few or many. What the soil was like, fertile or poor. Were the towns unwalled or fortified? Were there trees there or not? They were also told to bring back fruit from the land.
At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. They brought back a branch bearing a cluster of grapes, pomegranates, and figs.
They reported to Moses, Aaron, and the community that the land they found did flow with milk and honey, and then showed them the fruit. The people who live there though were powerful and the cities were fortified and very large.
Caleb silenced the people before Moses, and said that they should go up and take possession of the land, certain they could do that. But, the men who had gone up with him said that they couldn’t attack the people because they were stronger than they were. They spread a bad report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said that the land devours those living in it and all the people there were of great size, and they saw the Nephilim (giants) and they were like grasshoppers to them.
The promised land was a good land, a gracious gift from God. By speaking bad things about it, the faithless spies were speaking evil of the Lord. Their words became exaggerations and distortions. The people were said to be Nephilim. The reference to the Nephilim seems deliberately intended to evoke fear. The exaggeration of the faithless led to their final folly: “We seemed like grasshoppers.”