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0 While the flesh was still between their teeth, the Lord smote them with a very great plague

While the flesh was still between their teeth, the Lord smote them with a very great plague

In his last killing, God burned people to death for complaining. I suppose this was to teach them a lesson: Don't whine.

But if so, it didn't work. Those that survived God's fire immediately began to whine again, saying,

Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes. Numbers 11:4-6

So Moses and God talk things over and God says he'll give them meat, all right. He'll feed them meat until it comes out their noses!

Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you. 11:19-20

Where did God get the meat, you ask? From quails. Lots and lots of quails.

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. 11:31

God coated the ground with dead quails. A meter deep within a circle 60 kilometers in diameter.

How many quails would that be?

Well, let's see. The volume of a meter high cylinder with a diameter of 60 kilometers is about 3 billion cubic meters. Since there are 1000 liters in a cubic meter, that makes 3 trillion liters. If the average volume per quail was 1 liter (that would be a big quail), then there would have been 3 trillion dead quail covering the ground, a million or so for each of the several million Israelites.

So everyone had plenty of meat to eat. And the moral of the story is this: If you are hungry, just ask God to feed you. You may get more than you want. You may get so much that it comes out your nose. But God will feed you.

Or that would be the moral, if it weren't for the next verse.

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. 11:33

So God fed the people quails until it came out their noses and then killed many of them with "a very great plague."

Which means we need a new moral for this Bible Story: If you are hungry, don't ask God for help. He'll force you to eat food that you don't like until it comes out your nose and then he'll kill you in a plague.

God hates whiners.

(Since this was "a very great plague," I put the death toll at 10,000.)

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