Everyone who knows me knows I love a road trip and our dear Israelites are about to take the mother of all road trips. They are leaving Mt. Sinai, and heading out into the great unknown.
Before I go any further I need to ask, does anyone else find Dan to be a very strange Biblical name? I just don't feel as though Dan and Zebulon, and Gad should know each other. Dan, huh?
So they are heading out in order, always in order. A place for everyone and everyone in his place. They go along fine for a while and these poor folks start to get hungry.
I know...."How dare they, right?!" They have coriander seed cakes, which ABSOLUTELY sound divine (truly, no pun intended) to me. But these folks, like most of you weirdo's, they want some meat. MEAT, they not only want, they lust after the meat.
Ever heard the saying, the squeaky wheel gets the grease? Well not in the case. In this case the squeaky wheel gets killed...with fire.
The Lord is so mad at these folks for complaining that he literally burns them up with fire. For real. That will teach them to lust after meat. Right? Wrong. They still continue to lust after meat.
Then the Lord gets sooooo mad that he completely turns all Trunchbull on em (you know, Trunchbull.....from Matilda, read the book if you haven't....fantastic) So, just like the Trunchbull does when she finds out that the boy ate a piece of her cake. She forces him to eat a gigantic one in front of everyone in hopes that he will get so sick he will vomit in front of the whole school. God does that. He does. I know!
He says "They want meat!! They want meat!! Ok they will eat meat until they vomit it and the vomit comes out of their nostrils." He then totally mocks and teases them. He's all "Boo hoo, poor us we were lead out of Egypt.....boo hoo we were slaves and now we are free and we want meat....booo hooo" He ain't even playin...he is angry.
I tried to see it from his point of view. I really did. The closest I could come was thinking about when we took the kids to Disney. There were times when they would be tired and hungry and overstimulated and would get grumpy. If they dared to shed a tear I would totally lose it. "WE ARE AT THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, I SOLD A KIDNEY TO BRING YOU HERE AND YOU WILL NOT SHED A SINGLE TEAR! YOU WILL HAVE FUN UNTIL YOU VOMIT (OUT OF YOUR NOSE)"
I suppose it was similar. The only difference though is that he didn't really sacrifice anything, did he? I guess the point is, he did this for them and they agreed to go along. So if they have no meat, they should rejoice in no meat.
Then we have a little drama with Aaron and his wife. They get together and gossip about Moses and his wife and they start to totally dis on Moses. And guess who hears? Yep...God. He hears them and calls a meeting and gives Miriam leprosy. Lesson learned.
Next we have a spy mission. Some men folk set out to the Wilderness of Zin and they bring back some grapes, pomegranates and figs....who would want meat at this point?
Guess how long they were gone?..............40 days!
They say that yea the land is great, the food, fantabulous. But the people are GIANTS. Caleb didn't care (little man syndrome) he thought they could take em.
