Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:49 — 40.6MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Why does the Torah reading בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ Beha’alotcha (“when you raise up” [the lamps], Numbers 8–12) seem like such a random grab bag of instructions? We see some of the explanation in the parallel readings from Zechariah 2:10–4:7 and John 6.
The people complained about not having food so God gives them manna, then they complain about the manna so God gives them quail.
While Heaven cherishes those who call for help, God does not like complainers. What is the main source of complaining? Usually the spirit of complaining comes from ingratitude for what one has and instead of looking at what one does not have.
When reading the Torah, sometimes God refers to the people as “His people” and sometimes, “your people.” When they are in fellowship with God, they are His people, when they are not in fellowship with God, they are not His people.
Complaint of ha-am: ‘The people’ vs. Heaven
“The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?” (Numbers 11:4 NASB)
When the people of Israel rise up to complain or whine about their situation, God sometimes refers to them as אֲסַפְסֻף asafsuf, which means “gathering” or “collection.” This is an interesting play on words with the Hebrew name for the Red Sea: יַם־סוּף Yam Suf. We have this asafsuf complaining about how God chose to transport them across the Yam Suf to freedom. The evacuation from Egypt was supposed to be this big hallmark event.
God delivered them from bondage. But did they really understand how bad their situation actually was? Do we realize how far away from God we were when Heaven recused us?
God also describes the source of their complaining as “greedy desires” which in the Hebrew, is more literally described as “desiring desire” doubling the word for emphasis. With this picture of “desiring a desire” which was translated into English as “greedy desire” because their desire is overpowering them.
God warned Cain about this:
““If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”” (Genesis 4:7 NASB)
Then we see that, on one hand, the children of Israel are demanding to eat meat or flesh to eat, which is basar in Hebrew. On the other hand, they claim that they lost all appetite, because they are bored of the manna.
“but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.” (Numbers 11:6 NASB)
When the people say, “now our appetite is gone,” the word that is translated into English as “appetite” is actually the Hebrew word nefesh, which, if you remember the readings in Genesis, nefesh is the Hebrew word that is usually translated as “breath of life” or “soul.”
They are bored with the manna, which was introduced in Exodus 16, which was provided to them in response to the people’s cry for food during God’s deliverance of them from the House of Bondage (Mitzraim/Egypt). God is the one who delivered them and no one else. Its appearance — or not — is tied to the Shabbat, which is the weekly memorial to the Creator. God used the manna to reintroduce the Shabbat to the people of Israel with this “daily bread.”
The children of Israel had two main questions that they seem to ask over and over again:
- Is God with us or not?
- Where is our daily bread?
Just as one can look into a refrigerator full of food when one is hungry and not wanting any of the food found in it because one’s appetite desires something else, God had given the children of Israel what they really needed but it wasn’t what they wanted.
Yeshua haMashaikh (Jesus the Christ) countered the Adversary’s challenge to feed His bodily hunger with His own power, outside of what God would provide (later via Heaven’s servants), by quoting the Torah, “Man shall not live by bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Luke 4:4; quoting Deut. 8:3).
The book of Deuteronomy does not cancel out what was written before. It was written for the second generation post-Egypt. But it amplified what was said before, it did not cancel or negate what was taught before.
The Apostolic Writings (aka New Testament) is the same way. It does not negate what was written before (Matt. 5:17–19; Rom. 3:31). Rather, it explains and amplifies (“fulfills”; pleroo in Greek) its most important truths for a new generation.
“All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers. You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.” (Deuteronomy 8:1–6 NASB)
We should never despise the “bread that comes down from Heaven.” We may want something that “tastes better” but allowing ourselves to be lead by our stomachs or our own desires rather than by faith in God leads to the grave for those who were ruled by their flesh rather than the spirit. Instead we should recognize our blessings and thank God for them, and be content.
Heaven acted with both natural and supernatural means to demolish an oppressive superpower to liberate Israel from slavery, yet, so many times, they looked at their own flesh, rather than God’s power. When the spies went into the land, 80% of them came back reporting that although the land was indeed bountiful, it was impossible for them to take themselves. God never asked them to take it by themselves but because they couldn’t take it on their own, they refused to enter at all.
For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, “When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”” (Psalm 95:7–11 NASB)
What is a Shabbat that never ends (yom shekulo Shabbat)? Entering into God’s presence when He is with mankind, as He was in the Garden of Eden and in the midst of the people in the Promised Land (Heb. 4:9). This is a journey of trust, but what do you trust in? Do you trust in the flesh to create utopia (Greek for “not a place”)? Or do you trust in the Spirit to prepare you to be a place where the Eternal God dwells?
Complaint of ha-ish: ‘The man’ cries out for help from his Friend
Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat that we may eat!’ I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.”” (Numbers 11:10–15 NASB)
Moses knows he cannot fulfill the request of the people on his own. Yitro/Ruel, Moses’ father in law, had also told Moses that he could not take care of the people on his own and advised him to delegate his authority, which God agrees to and anoints 70 people with spirit of prophesy and authority. The story is similar to what we read about in Acts 2, when the Apostles were anointed in a special way with the Spirit of God.
The difference between Moses and other prophets is that God spoke with the prophets in dreams and vision, which were murky but God addressed and taught Moses face to face, just as he spoke with Abraham.
Yeshua faced a similar situation in the Garden. He was facing a task that seemed insurmountable and asked if the task could be taken from Him, but both Moses and Yeshua accepted God’s decision in the matter. Neither Moses’ or Yeshua’s complaints were adversarial. They were asking God, the One who could help them, for His help. The complaints of the people, on the other hand, were adversarial and demanding. The children of Israel were greedy and living by the desires of their flesh.
Bread from Heaven: Real food for real change (John 6)
We see in Numbers 11 an interesting juxtaposition of the 72 (70+2) who were picked to be the LORD’s hands and mouth with Moshe in Israel vs. those who wanted to stuff their mouths with the flesh of Mitzraim. They were “greedy” for “meat” and not the bread that came down from Heaven, both of which God provided.
“Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” (John 6:26 NASB)
In Yeshua’s day, whenever Jesus miraculously fed the people, they were excited and happy, even trying to make him their King, but when things got mundane or monotonous, they lost sight and forgot what Yeshua had done for them and begged for more signs to entertain them, not caring about His message.
They shouldn’t have needed signs all the time. They should have been grateful because Yeshua gave them what they needed, but they weren’t. When their backs were up against the Wall, God opened the sea and they walked on dry land. God gave them water from a rock when they were thirsty and Yeshua gave them bread from Heaven. Instead of saying “Thank you,” they said, “What have you done for me lately?”
Yeshua hints at Kibroth-hattaavah (“graves of greediness”) with this shocking statement in John 6:
“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” (John 6:53–56 NASB)
We see how Yeshua exercised full control the wind and waves, just as YHWH did when He opened the Red Sea for Israel to cross. Yeshua walked on water and calmed the storm with His words. He also offers His own flesh and blood for the sake of His people.
- Yeshua also miraculously multiplied loaves bread and flesh/fish:
- Bread that came down from Heaven: Manna and Messiah
- Feeding of the 5,000 (12 baskets of leftovers): Israel
- Feeding of the 4,000 (7 baskets of leftovers): The nations
Every year, there’s a gathering in the Nevada desert called “The Burning Man” which thousands of people attend to rid themselves of their desires and reach some sort of higher plane. They want to be free, but when people go to Burning Man, they leave the same way they came. When we encounter God, we come way but we leave another way. We leave born again. We have been given the privilege of sharing this message that we can leave behind our old life and be reborn as children of God.
Summary: Tammy