Chronological
The Israelites Complain
11 And it happened, the people were like those who complain of hardship[a] in the hearing[b] of Yahweh, and Yahweh became angry,[c] and the fire of Yahweh burned among them, and it consumed the edge of the camp. 2 Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to Yahweh, and the fire died down. 3 And he called the name of that place Taberah[d] because the fire of Yahweh burned among them.
4 The riff-raff that were in their midst had a strong desire;[e] and the Israelites[f] turned back and also wept, and they said, “Who will feed us meat? 5 We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumber, melon, leek, the onions, and the garlic. 6 But now our strength is dried up;[g] there is nothing whatsoever except for the manna before us.”[h]
7 Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its outward appearance was like that of bdellium-gum. 8 The people went about and gathered it, and they ground it with mills or crushed it with mortar. Then they boiled it in a pot and made it into bread-cakes; and it tasted like olive oil cakes. 9 When the dew came down on the camp at night, the manna came down with it.
10 Moses heard the people weeping according to their[i] clans, each at the doorway of their tents. Then Yahweh became very angry,[j] and in the eyes of Moses it was bad. 11 And Moses said to Yahweh, “Why have you brought trouble to your servant? Why have I not found favor in your eyes, that the burdens of all these people have been placed on me? 12 Did I conceive all these people? If I have fathered them,[k] that you could say to me, ‘Carry them[l] in your lap, just as a foster-father carries the suckling on the land that you swore an oath to their ancestors?’[m] 13 From where do I have meat to give all these people? They weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat and let us eat!’ 14 I am not able to carry all these people along alone; they are too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please kill me immediately if I find favor in your eyes, and do not let me see my misery.”
16 And Yahweh said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men from the elders of Israel whom you know are elders of the people and their[n] officials; take them to the tent of assembly, and they will stand there with you. 17 I will come down and speak with you there; I will take away from the spirit that is on you, and I will place it on them; and they will bear the burdens of the people with you; you will not bear it alone. 18 And you will say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves tomorrow, for you will eat meat because you have wept in the ears of Yahweh, saying, “Who will feed us good meat? It was good for us in Egypt.” Yahweh will give to you meat, and you will eat. 19 You will eat, not one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month,[o] until it comes out from your nose and becomes as nausea to you; because you have rejected Yahweh, who is in your midst, and you wept before his presence,[p] saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’” 21 But Moses said, “There are six hundred thousand on foot, among whom I am in the midst, and you yourself said, ‘I will give meat to them, and they will eat for a whole month.’ 22 Should flocks and cattle be slaughtered for them? Should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be enough for them?” 23 And Yahweh said to Moses, “Is Yahweh’s power limited?[q] Now you will see if my word will happen or not.”
24 So Moses went out, and he spoke the words of Yahweh to the people, and he gathered together seventy men from the elders of the people, and he made them stand[r] all around the tent. 25 Then Yahweh went down in the cloud and spoke to him, and he took away the spirit that was on him, and he put it[s] on the seventy elders. And as soon as the spirit was resting on them they prophesied, but they did not do it again.
26 But two men were left in the camp; the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the second was Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those who were written down, but they did not go out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp. 27 So a boy[t] ran and told Moses and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from time of his youth, answered, “Moses, my lord, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that he[u] give all Yahweh’s people prophets, that Yahweh put his spirit on them!” 30 Then Moses and the elders of Israel were gathered to the camp.
The Quail
31 Then a wind set out from Yahweh, and it drove quails from the west, and he spread them out on the camp about a day’s journey on one side and about a day’s journey on the other, all around the camp, about two cubits on the surface of the land. 32 And so the people worked[v] all day and all night and all the next day, and they gathered the quail (the least of the ones collecting gathered ten homers).[w] 33 While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was consumed, Yahweh was angry with the people, and Yahweh struck a very great plague among the people. 34 And he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah[x] because they buried the people that were greedy.[y] 35 From Kibroth Hattaavah[z] the people set out to Hazeroth; and they stayed[aa] in Hazeroth.
Aaron and Miriam Murmur Against Moses
12 And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he took (because he took a Cushite wife); 2 and they said, “Has Yahweh spoken only through Moses? Has not Yahweh also spoken through us?” And Yahweh heard it. 3 Now the man, Moses, was more humble than any other person on the face of the earth, 4 and Yahweh said suddenly to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Go out, you three, to the tent of assembly.” So the three of them when out. 5 And Yahweh went down in a column of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and he called Aaron and Miriam, and the two of them went, 6 and he said,
“Please hear my words:
If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh,
will make myself known to him in a vision.
I will speak to him in a dream.[ab]
7 Not so with my servant Moses;
in all my house he is faithful.
8 I will speak to him mouth to mouth,
in clearness, not in riddles;
and he will look at the form of Yahweh.
Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”
9 And Yahweh became very angry[ac] with them, and he went away. 10 And the cloud departed from on the tent, and behold, Miriam was infected with a skin disease[ad] white like snow; when Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was afflicted with a skin disease. 11 So Aaron said to Moses, “Please, my lord, please do not put on us this sin in which we were foolish and in which we have sinned. 12 Please do not let her be like the dead, whose flesh is half consumed when coming out from the womb of its mother.” 13 And Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “God, please heal her!”[ae] 14 But Yahweh said to Moses, “If her father had surely spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be confined for seven days to an outside place of the camp, and afterward she may be gathered.” 15 So Miriam was confined to the outside place of the camp seven days, and the people did not set out until Miriam was gathered. 16 And afterward the people set out from Hazeroth, and they encamped in the desert of Paran.
Spies Sent to Spy Out the Land of Canaan
13 And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Send for yourself men, and let them explore the land of Canaan, which I am about to give to the Israelites;[af] from each tribe of his father send one man,[ag] everyone a leader among them.” 3 So Moses sent them from the desert of Paran on the command of Yahweh; all of the men were leaders[ah] of the Israelites.[ai] 4 And these are their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; 5 from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; 6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; 7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; 8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; 9 from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; 10 from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; 11 from the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi; 12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; 13 from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; 14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi; 15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki. 16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to explore the land. And Moses called Hoshea son of Nun Joshua.
17 Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan, and he said to them, “Go up like this to the Negev,[aj] and go up into the hill country, 18 and you will see what the land is like and if the people who inhabit it are strong or weak, or whether they are few or many, 19 and whether the land that they are inhabiting is good or bad, and whether the cities they are inhabiting are camps or fortifications, 20 and whether the land is fertile or lean, and whether there are trees on it or not. You will show yourself courageous, and you will take some of the fruit of the land.” It was the time of first ripe grapes.
21 So they went up and explored the land from the desert of Zin until Rehob, at Lebo Hamath.[ak] 22 They went up through the Negev[al] and came to Hebron, where[am] Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai the descendants of the Anakites were. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 And they came up to the valley[an] of Eshcol, and they cut off a vine branch and one cluster of grapes from there; they carried it on a pole between two men, with pomegranates and figs. 24 That place he called the valley[ao] of Eshcol on account of the cluster of grapes that the Israelites[ap] cut off from there.
The Spies Return
25 They returned from exploring the land at the end of forty days.[aq] 26 And they came[ar] to Moses and Aaron and to the entire community of the Israelites[as] in the desert of Paran at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the community, and they showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him,[at] “We came to the land that you sent us, and it is flowing of milk and honey; this is its fruit. 28 Yet the people who are inhabiting it are strong and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the descendants of the Anakites there. 29 The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev;[au] the Hittites, Jebusites, and the Amorites are living in the hill country; and the Canaanites are living at the sea and on the banks of the Jordan.”
30 And Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “Surely, let us go up and let us take possession of it because surely we will be able to prevail over it.” 31 And the men who went up with him said, “We are not able to go up to the people because they are stronger than us.” 32 And they presented the report of the land that they explored to the Israelites,[av] saying, “The land that we went through to explore is a land that eats its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in its midst are men of great size.[aw] 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the descendants[ax] of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their eyes.”
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