Stuffed Sick

Numbers 11:32-33 KJV

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.

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.

What a difference there was between how Israel ate the manna versus how they ate the quail! With the manna the people would gather enough for their family for that day. The food was prepared a variety of ways and had a light healthy taste to it. In the case of the quail we get the sense of where this will lead in that they "fell a lusting"[1] for something other than what God has given.

·       They gathered them hastily

·       They hoarded them greedily and

·       They consumed them gluttonously

They were still filling their bellies when the wrath of God brought disease upon them. I imagine they began to vomit and buckle over with stomach cramps as there bellies, filled beyond their capacity to hold it in rejected its load.

God had graciously sustained them but sustenance did not satisfy them. They wanted, for lack of another term, to be “stuffed sick.”

They got what they wanted.

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[1] Numbers 11:4 KJV

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?