The children of Israel, subsisting on manna and quail, weep in the wilderness because they long for the days in Egypt when they
imagine they dined on finer fare. Truth is they were slaves in Egypt so it is unlikely that their task masters gave them fish to eat
“for nothing”. We tend to color the past in ways that fill in the blanks of our
present complaints. Sometimes we imagine the past was better than it could have
been. Often we imagine it was worse than it was. But either way we are not
satisfied with whatever is and therefore we long for what never was. And so the
children of Israel throw a temper tantrum and Moses becomes despondent and the Lord
becomes exceedingly angry and the dysfunctional Exodus family tries to figure out how
to live together in the desert when no one is happy. When the very angry Lord
calms down the despondent Moses is instructed to share the load and the
solution to the people’s displeasure is the Spirit of the Lord resting upon the
seventy appointed along with two others who were not approved which is often
how God acts because the Spirit of the Lord cannot be contained or easily
explained. The person who is most moved is Moses which means he will refrain
from complaining, “why have you treated your servant so badly?” at least for
the time being and get back to leading which is what God called him to do. And
the children of Israel will quiet down and be grateful they have something to
eat even if it is “what is it” (manna) and the same bird everyday.
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