Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Numbers 11:1 - 11:1
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NUMBERS CHAPTER 11
The murmuring of the people, for which the fire breaketh in upon them, Num_11:1. Moses prayeth to God; the fire is quenched, Num_11:2. The name of the place, and why called, Num_11:3. The people murmur again, and lust after flesh, Num_11:4-6. Manna described, Num_11:7-9. Moses’s complaint and prayer, Num_11:10-15. God commandeth him to gather seventy of the elders of Israel to help him, Num_11:16,17; promising them flesh to eat, Num_11:18-20. Moses’ unbelief, Num_11:21,22. God is angry with him, Num_11:23. Moses having gathered seventy of the elders of Israel together, rehearseth the words of the Lord to them, Num_11:24. God coming down in a cloud, taketh of Moses’s spirit and giveth to the seventy; the effects thereof, Num_11:25. Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp, Num_11:26-29. God giveth them quails to eat, Num_11:30-32; and smiteth the people with a very great plague, Num_11:33,34.
Complained, or, murmured; the occasion whereof seems to be their last three days’ journey in a vast howling wilderness, without any benefit; and thereupon the remembrance of their long abode in the wilderness, and the prospect and fear of many other tedious, and fruitless, and dangerous journeys, whereby they were like to be long delayed from coming to that rest, that land of milk and honey, which God had promised them, and which they thirsted after.
The fire of the Lord, i.e. a fire sent from God in an extraordinary manner, possibly from the pillar of cloud and fire, or from heaven, as 2Ki_1:12.
In the uttermost parts of the camp; either because the sin began there among the mixt multitude, who probably had their place there; or amongst those who were feeble and weary with their last journey, and therefore hindmost in the march; or in mercy to the people, whom he would rather awaken to repentance than utterly destroy, and therefore he sent it into the skirts, and not the heart and midst of the camp.