Numbers 11 Summary and Study Guide

God sent the meat Himself, and then struck the people down while it was still in their mouths. This Numbers 11 summary and study guide follows the chapter from the fire at Taberah to the graves at Kibroth-hattaavah, and answers the question a reader is left holding: why the same complaint that once brought bread from heaven brought fire this time.

Setting the Stage

God had promised Abraham a land, and centuries later his descendants were still living outside it. He brought them out of Egypt, gave them His law at Mount Sinai, and had them build Him a tent so that He could live in the middle of their camp.

They stayed at that mountain for about eleven months. Then the cloud over the tent lifted and Israel set out for the promised land at last, marching three days behind a gold-covered chest that held the terms of the agreement God had made with them at the mountain, and that went ahead of them to find them a resting place (Numbers 10:33). Numbers 11 is what happened at the end of those three days.

Comprehensive Numbers 11 Summary

Israel had barely started walking before the complaining began. God heard it, and fire broke out at the edge of the camp until Moses prayed and it stopped. They named the place Taberah, burning.

The complaining started again almost at once, and this time it had a subject. The foreigners travelling with Israel began craving other food, Israel joined them, and the whole camp wept for the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic of Egypt. They were tired of manna, the bread God had sent every morning for a year.

Moses heard them crying at the door of every tent and took it to God. He told Him the load was too heavy, that these were not his children to carry, and he asked God to kill him rather than make him carry them further.

God answered him with help he had not asked for. Seventy elders were to be gathered at the tent, and God would take the Spirit resting on Moses and put it on them so they could carry the people with him. God answered the camp too, but as a punishment: they would eat meat for a whole month, until they were sick of it, because they had rejected the God living among them and said they were better off in Egypt.

Moses could not see how, and said so: six hundred thousand men on foot, and no herd or sea that could feed them. God asked whether His own arm had grown too short, and told him to watch.

The Spirit came on the seventy at the tent, and on two men who had stayed behind in the camp. Then a wind brought quail in from the sea, and the people spent a day, a night and another day gathering them. While they were still chewing, a plague struck. They buried their dead, named the place Kibroth-hattaavah, and moved on to Hazeroth.

One Word Summary

• Craving: the chapter ends at a place named for it.
• Burden: what Moses could not carry and God redistributed.
• Granted: God gave them exactly what they demanded.

In One Sentence

Israel complained until fire fell, then wept for the food of Egypt until Moses begged God to kill him, so God put His Spirit on seventy elders to help him carry the people and sent quail until the camp choked on what it had asked for.

Theme of Numbers 11

Numbers 11 is about craving that will not be satisfied by what God gives. Around that run four things: God hears what is muttered inside a tent, He can grant a request as a punishment, He meets an honest confession of weakness with real help, and He answers doubt about His power with a question. Alongside them runs a Spirit God will not keep inside the approved place, who reaches two men that never left the camp. Judgment and kindness stand side by side here.

Numbers 11 Outline

• Numbers 11:1-3: The people complain, fire from the LORD burns the edge of the camp, Moses prays, and the place is named Taberah.
• Numbers 11:4-6: The foreigners among Israel crave meat, and the whole camp weeps for the food of Egypt and despises the manna.
• Numbers 11:7-9: The manna itself is described, along with how the people collected and cooked it.
• Numbers 11:10-15: Moses hears the weeping, tells God the burden is too heavy, and asks to die.
• Numbers 11:16-17: God tells Moses to gather seventy elders who will receive the Spirit and share the load.
• Numbers 11:18-20: God tells Moses what to say to the people: they will eat meat for a month until it disgusts them.
• Numbers 11:21-23: Moses questions how it can be done, and God asks whether His hand has grown short.
• Numbers 11:24-25: Moses gathers the seventy at the tent, and the Spirit rests on them and they prophesy.
• Numbers 11:26-30: Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp, Joshua asks Moses to stop them, and Moses refuses.
• Numbers 11:31-32: A wind brings quail around the camp and the people gather them for two days and a night.
• Numbers 11:33-35: A plague strikes while they eat, the dead are buried at Kibroth-hattaavah, and Israel moves on to Hazeroth.

Moses’ Prayer

The longest speech in this chapter belongs to Moses, at the end of himself, and it is worth reading as a prayer rather than as an outburst, because God treats it as one.

“Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me?” (Numbers 11:11)

Moses is asking God why He has treated him so badly, and why the whole weight of the nation has been put on him. The King James word that opens both halves of that verse simply means why.

The prayer has five parts, and they run in this order:

• Two accusations against God (verse 11): that God has treated him badly, and that God is not pleased with him.
• Two questions denying responsibility (verse 12): “Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them?” Moses is asking whether these are his children, that he should be the one to carry them.
• One impossible demand named (verse 13): they want meat, and he has none to give.
• One honest confession (verse 14): “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.”
• One request God refuses (verse 15): kill me now.

God corrects none of the accusations and grants none of the request. He answers the single true sentence in it, verse 14, and passes over the rest without a word of rebuke. Elijah and Jonah also asked God to take their lives, and both were answered with provision and a question rather than a reprimand (1 Kings 19:4; Jonah 4:3).

Observations from Numbers 11

The Chapter Is Framed by Two Names (Verses 3 and 34)

Moses records why each of the chapter’s two place names was given. Taberah means burning, “because the fire of the LORD burnt among them” (verse 3). Kibroth-hattaavah means the graves of craving, “because there they buried the people that lusted” (verse 34).

The King James word there covers any strong desire, and in this chapter the desire is for food. The chapter opens with a fire and closes with a funeral, and Israel carried both names with them afterwards, since Deuteronomy 9:22 still lists them a generation later.

God’s Anger Is Kindled Three Times, and It Rises (Verses 1, 10, 33)

The same phrase marks each stage. In verse 1 “his anger was kindled.” In verse 10, after the weeping had spread through every family, “the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly.”

In verse 33, with the meat in their teeth, “the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people,” and this time the plague follows. The escalation tracks the sin. God warned before He struck.

One Hebrew Word Carries Both Answers (Verses 17, 25 and 31)

Hebrew uses one word, ruach, for the Spirit God takes from Moses and puts on the seventy, and for the wind God sends to bring the quail. God answered both requests by His ruach. One answer put seventy men on their feet to serve.

The other buried the people who had demanded it. The same gift from God went two ways. The seventy received it to serve the people; the camp wanted it to feed an appetite God had already told them to drop.

God Answered the One True Thing Moses Said (Verses 11, 14 and 17)

Moses said, “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me” (verse 14). God said the elders would “bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone” (verse 17).

God tells Moses the seventy will carry the people alongside him so that he no longer has to carry them by himself. Three of his own words come straight back at him: burden from verse 11, and bear and alone from verse 14. God quotes Moses rather than paraphrasing him, and the word He aims at is the last one.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Did God Send Fire for Complaining When the Same Complaint Brought Bread in Exodus 16?

Numbers gives no reason, so the answer has to be built from what had changed between the two events, and what had changed was Sinai. In Exodus 16 Israel complained about food and God answered with manna and no judgment at all (Exodus 16:2-4). By Numbers 11 they had entered a covenant with God, He had moved into the middle of their camp, and they were eating food He sent every morning. Their responsibility had grown with their privileges.

Many also point to the golden calf, since God told Moses the punishment for it was postponed rather than cancelled, “in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them” (Exodus 32:34), which would leave Israel under a sentence that further rebellion could wake. The principle itself the New Testament states plainly, that greater light brings greater accountability (Hebrews 12:25).

Did Manna Taste Like Honey or Like Oil?

Both, at different stages. Exodus 16:31 says “the taste of it was like wafers made with honey,” describing the manna as it fell. Numbers 11:8 says “the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil,” and says it right after the people have ground the manna in mills, beaten it in a mortar and baked it into cakes. One verse describes the manna as it lay on the ground and the other describes it after the people had cooked it, so the two agree.

Did Seventy Elders Go Out, or Only Sixty-Eight?

Seventy were chosen and summoned, and sixty-eight stood at the tent. Verse 24 says Moses “gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people,” and verse 26 then tells us two of them had stayed in the camp. Scripture regularly keeps the round number even when the group is not complete, in the same way Paul still calls the apostles “the twelve” in 1 Corinthians 15:5 when he means the eleven who were left after Judas. Verse 26 is making a different point: God’s Spirit reached the two men who stayed behind.

What Does “They Prophesied, and Did Not Cease” Mean?

The Hebrew here is genuinely open, and the King James reads it differently from most modern versions. The KJV takes it as the elders not stopping. Most modern translations take the same words the other way, as the elders never doing it again. The Hebrew is literally “and they added not,” which can mean either, and a third reading takes it as the elders adding nothing of their own to what the Spirit gave them.

Nothing in the chapter’s argument depends on which is right. Either way the prophesying was the public sign that God had equipped these men. In the Old Testament, prophesying often means speaking under God rather than foretelling the future, and verse 25 says only that these men spoke.

Were the Quail Flying Two Cubits Above the Ground, or Piled Two Cubits Deep?

The verse can be read either way and both readings are old. Numbers 11:31 says the quail fell “as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth,” which is about three feet.

Some read that as birds exhausted from a long flight skimming low over the ground where anyone could knock them down, and some read it as birds lying heaped three feet deep around the camp. The text does not settle it, and it does not need to: either way there was far more meat than the camp could have eaten, which is exactly what God had told Moses to expect.

If God Promised a Whole Month of Meat, Why Did the Plague Come on the Second Day?

The chapter never says the month ran its course. Verse 20 states the month as the length of a punishment, that they would eat until the meat sickened them, and then verse 32 has the people spending all that day, all night and all the next day gathering quail and spreading them out before anyone sat down to eat.

The judgment fell when they finally ate. Many read verse 20 as describing how much meat God sent rather than how long the eating lasted, and the quantity in verse 31 is certainly enough for a month.

Common Misunderstandings

• That the quail were a blessing. Verse 20 says God gave the meat “because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you,” and Psalm 106:15 sums the episode up as God giving them their request and sending “leanness into their soul.” The quail were an answer to prayer and a punishment at the same time.
• That the foreigners travelling with Israel are to blame for Israel’s sin. They are named in verse 4 as the ones who started this round of craving, but Israel had already complained on its own account in verse 1, before they are mentioned at all. Verse 4 also says Israel “wept again,” which points back to Israel’s own record rather than to anyone else’s influence.
• That Moses was rebuked for how he prayed. God answered verse 14 and let every other sentence go by without comment. The chapter records what an overwhelmed man said to God and how God responded, and the response was seventy men.

Christ Connection

The clearest link this chapter has to Christ is one that Scripture itself makes. Moses, refusing to defend his own standing, said, “would God that all the LORD’S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!” (verse 29). Moses wished that God would pour His Spirit out on every one of His people instead of a chosen few.

Joel later promised exactly that, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Joel 2:28), and on the day of Pentecost Peter stood up and said, “this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). What Moses wanted for Israel, Christ obtained for the church: Peter says of Jesus that “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

Three other lines in this chapter run toward Him:

• The bread they despised. Israel said of the manna, “there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes” (verse 6). Jesus took up that same manna and said, “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32), and then, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). The sin of Numbers 11 is possible under the gospel too, because a person can be handed the true bread and find it too plain.
• “Forbid them” answered by “Forbid him not.” Joshua told Moses to silence two men prophesying outside the approved place (verse 28). John told Jesus, “we forbad him, because he followeth not us,” and Jesus answered, “Forbid him not” (Mark 9:38-39). Moses would not guard his own honour, and neither would Jesus.
• The burden no one could carry alone. Moses needed seventy men to help him carry a nation, and still asked to die. Christ needs no one to share the load: “he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). He saves completely, because He never stops praying for the people He carries.

When, Where, and Why

• When: Early in the second year after Israel left Egypt, within days of leaving Mount Sinai. Numbers 10:11 dates the departure to the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, and Numbers 10:33 says they marched three days before the events of this chapter.
• Where: In the wilderness of Paran, at two places named for what happened there, Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah, and then at Hazeroth, where verse 35 leaves them. The exact sites are unknown, and the identifications sometimes offered for Hazeroth rest on little more than a similar-sounding modern name.
• Why: Moses records this because it is where the wilderness generation began to turn, and Scripture keeps pointing back to it. Paul says of these events, “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted,” and adds, “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured” (1 Corinthians 10:6, 10). Paul says the record was kept so that we would not repeat it.

Key Verses

“But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.” (Numbers 11:6)

Israel is saying they are worn out and that there is nothing in front of them but manna. Ever since Eden, bread had cost people labour: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). For a year Israel had found bread lying on the ground every morning without a field, a plough or a harvest, and here they call it nothing.

“I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.” (Numbers 11:14)

Moses tells God he cannot carry this nation by himself because the weight is more than he can hold. He uses almost the same words again in Deuteronomy 1:9, “I am not able to bear you myself alone,” when he reminds the next generation how the load of leading Israel came to be shared out.

“Is the LORD’S hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.” (Numbers 11:23)

God asks Moses whether His reach has somehow become too short, and tells him to watch and find out. “Waxed short” means grown shorter, and the picture is of an arm too short to reach what it is aiming at. Isaiah later uses the same figure: “the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save” (Isaiah 59:1).

“And he called the name of that place Kibroth-hattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.” (Numbers 11:34)

The camp asked for one thing, received it in full, and then dug graves for the people who ate it. Psalm 78 adds a detail Numbers leaves out, that the plague “slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel” (Psalm 78:31). Paul later describes people “whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame” (Philippians 3:19), which echoes what this place name says about appetite put in God’s place.

Key Lessons from Numbers 11

• God hears a complaint no other person has heard, since in verse 1 “the LORD heard it” and acted before Moses is mentioned at all.
• Memory can rewrite the past in comfort’s favour, since the camp that said “it was well with us in Egypt” was talking about the place where they had been slaves (verse 18).
• A prayer can be granted and still be a judgment, as the quail were, and verse 20 says why: the request had been made in contempt of what God was already giving.
• Telling God plainly that a load is too heavy can be met with help rather than rebuke (verses 14 and 17).
• What God gave in mercy was found in the middle of the camp, and what the people seized for themselves was found outside it (verses 24 and 31).

To see how this chapter fits into the rest of the book, read our full overview: The Book of Numbers Summary by Chapter.

To go deeper into what this chapter teaches, read our full study: Lessons from Numbers 11.

Bible Study Questions

1. Verse 1 says the LORD heard the complaining, and it does not tell us what the complaint was about. Why might Moses have left that out?
2. Compare the six foods listed in verse 5 with the life Israel actually lived in Egypt. What does the list tell you about how the camp was remembering it?
3. Read Moses’ words in verses 11 to 15 and God’s reply in verses 16 and 17. Which of Moses’ statements did God answer, and which did He pass over?
4. In verse 23 God answers Moses with a question rather than an explanation. What does that reply require of Moses?
5. Joshua wanted Eldad and Medad silenced, and Moses did not. What does Moses’ answer in verse 29 reveal about him?
6. God gave the camp exactly what it asked for in verse 31. Where in your own life would you be uneasy to be given precisely what you have been asking God for?
7. Peter connects Moses’ wish in verse 29 to the day of Pentecost. What difference would it make to read this chapter knowing that the Spirit Moses wanted for everyone has been poured out?

Frequently Asked Questions

Numbers 11, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.

2 And the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the LORD, the fire was quenched.

3 And he called the name of the place Taberah: because the fire of the LORD burnt among them.

4 And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?

5 We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:

6 But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

7 And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium.

8 And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.

9 And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.

10 Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased.

11 And Moses said unto the LORD, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me?

12 Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?

13 Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat.

14 I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.

15 And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.

16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee.

17 And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.

18 And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.

19 Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days;

20 But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?

21 And Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month.

22 Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them?

23 And the LORD said unto Moses, Is the LORD’S hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.

24 And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle.

25 And the LORD came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.

26 But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle: and they prophesied in the camp.

27 And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp.

28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them.

29 And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD’S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!

30 And Moses gat him into the camp, he and the elders of Israel.

31 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.

32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.

33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.

34 And he called the name of that place Kibroth-hattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.

35 And the people journeyed from Kibroth-hattaavah unto Hazeroth; and abode at Hazeroth.