The Graves of Craving: When God Answers Fools Text: Numbers 11:31-35
Introduction: The Terrible Mercy of Answered Prayer
We live in a therapeutic age, one that has domesticated God and turned Him into a celestial butler, whose job it is to bring us whatever our hearts desire. We have been taught, by a thousand insipid worship songs and sentimental sermons, that the great tragedy is an unanswered prayer. But the Scriptures teach us that there is a far greater tragedy, a far more terrifying prospect, and that is when a holy God, in righteous anger, answers the prayer of a fool. There are times when the very worst thing that can happen to a man is for him to get exactly what he wants.
This is the lesson of Kibroth-hattaavah, the graves of craving. The children of Israel, delivered from the iron furnace of Egypt by signs and wonders, led by a pillar of cloud and fire, and fed daily by bread from heaven, had decided that they were miserable. They were tired of the unceasing, miraculous provision of God. They despised the manna, calling it "this light bread," and they began to weep for the fish, the cucumbers, the leeks, and the onions of Egypt. Think of it. They were rewriting their own salvation history in real time. They were remembering the taste of the vegetables but forgetting the sting of the whip. This is what sin does. It is a form of profound historical revisionism. It makes bondage look like a feast and freedom look like a famine.
So they complained, they wept, they lusted, and they demanded meat. And God, in His terrible mercy, gave them their request. He answered their prayer. He gave them exactly what their sinful hearts craved, and He gave it to them in such abundance that it became their destruction. This is a fatal grace. It is a provision that is simultaneously a plague. God is not a cosmic vending machine that we can kick until it gives us what we want. He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, and when His grace is treated with contempt, that very grace can become the instrument of judgment. This is a lesson our soft and sentimental generation desperately needs to learn. We must learn to fear the prospect of getting what we want, when what we want is contrary to the Giver of all good things.
The Text
Now there went forth a wind from Yahweh, and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits over the surface of the ground. And the people spent all day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers), and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of Yahweh was kindled against the people, and Yahweh struck the people with a very severe plague. So the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah because there they buried the people who had been greedy. From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth, and they remained at Hazeroth.
(Numbers 11:31-35 LSB)
A Deluge of Flesh (v. 31-32)
We begin with God's overwhelming answer to their sinful craving.
"Now there went forth a wind from Yahweh, and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits over the surface of the ground. And the people spent all day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers), and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp." (Numbers 11:31-32)
Notice first that this provision is entirely supernatural. It is "a wind from Yahweh." God does not need complex supply chains. He commands the winds and the sea, and they obey Him. He is the Creator, and He can deploy His creation however He sees fit. The same God who commanded the Red Sea to part now commands the wind to bring a storm of birds. The power on display is staggering. The quail fall for a day's journey in every direction, a circle roughly forty miles in diameter. And they are piled up, not just scattered, but about two cubits, or three feet, deep. This is not a gentle provision; it is a grotesque avalanche of flesh. It is God saying, "You want meat? I will give you meat until you are sick of the very sight of it."
The response of the people is not gratitude, but gluttonous frenzy. They work for two full days and a night, gathering. This is not the calm, daily gathering of manna, a picture of trusting God for daily bread. This is hoarding. This is panic. This is the lust of the flesh in full operation. The text tells us that the one who gathered the least still brought in ten homers. A homer is about 220 liters, or 6 bushels. So the laziest man in the camp gathered sixty bushels of quail. This is an absurd amount, enough to fill a modern pickup truck multiple times over. They were not gathering to eat; they were gathering to possess. Their craving had given birth to covetousness, and they were burying themselves in the object of their desire.
They spread them all around the camp to dry them, creating a vast, stinking charnel house under the desert sun. They were so consumed with their lust that they could not see the abomination they were creating. This is what unchecked desire does. It blinds a man to the ugliness of his own sin. He thinks he is satisfying a need, when in reality he is building an altar to his own belly, and the stench of that idolatry is an offense to God.
The Instantaneous Judgment (v. 33)
The consequence of their sin was not delayed. It was immediate, and it was tied directly to the sin itself.
"While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of Yahweh was kindled against the people, and Yahweh struck the people with a very severe plague." (Numbers 11:33 LSB)
The timing here is crucial. The judgment falls in the very act of sinning. "While the meat was still between their teeth." God did not wait for them to digest their ill-gotten meal. He struck them at the moment of gratification. This is to teach us that the pleasure of sin is fleeting, but the judgment is not. The link between the craving and the curse could not be more direct. The very thing they lusted after became the instrument of their death. As the Psalmist later recounts, "He gave them their request, But sent leanness into their soul" (Psalm 106:15). In this case, it was a leanness that led directly to the grave.
The anger of Yahweh was kindled. We must not sanitize this. This is not a mild displeasure. This is the holy wrath of a covenant Lord whose grace has been spurned and whose provision has been despised. They had rejected His heavenly bread for the slave food of Egypt, and in so doing, they had rejected Him. Their sin was not merely dietary; it was theological. It was idolatry. They had made their bellies their god, and that god could not save them from the plague.
God struck them with a "very severe plague." The thing they thought would give them life and satisfaction brought them only death and destruction. This is the fundamental lie of all sin. It promises fulfillment but delivers only emptiness and, ultimately, death. The wages of sin is death, and here we see that principle enacted with terrifying speed and severity.
A Memorial to Greed (v. 34-35)
God ensures that the lesson of this event is not forgotten. He gives the place a name that will serve as a permanent warning.
"So the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah because there they buried the people who had been greedy. From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth, and they remained at Hazeroth." (Numbers 11:34-35 LSB)
God is in the business of naming things. He named the light "day" and the darkness "night." To name something is to declare its essential nature and to exercise authority over it. Here, He names this place "Kibroth-hattaavah," which means "the graves of craving" or "the graves of lust." He wanted every future generation of Israel that passed that way to know what happens when men give themselves over to their greedy desires. It is a monument to the deadliness of sin.
They buried the people who had been greedy. The word for greedy here is the same root as "craving" or "lusting." Their identity was defined by their sin. This is a sober warning. If we are not defined by our identity in Christ, we will be defined by our lusts. We will become what we worship. If we worship our appetites, we become nothing more than a walking appetite, destined for the grave.
And then, the narrative moves on. "From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth." The camp moves on, but it is a smaller camp now. The congregation has been purged. The judgment is severe, but it is also a purifying fire. God will not allow His people to settle into their idolatry. He will discipline them, even severely, in order to preserve a remnant for His own name's sake. They left the graves of craving behind, but they were meant to carry the lesson with them.
The Gospel at the Graves of Craving
This story is not just a grim warning about what happened to Israel in the wilderness. The Apostle Paul tells us plainly that "these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition" (1 Corinthians 10:11). We are the new Israel, and we are marching through our own wilderness. And we have the same sinful hearts, prone to the same kind of craving.
We too are fed with bread from heaven. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35). He is the true manna, the spiritual food that gives eternal life. But how often do we despise this light bread? How often do our hearts wander back to Egypt? We look at the world's menu of power, sex, money, and approval, and we begin to weep for the leeks and onions. We convince ourselves that the world's table offers a richer feast than the table of the Lord. We complain that the Christian life is too restrictive, that the bread of heaven is too plain. And so we crave.
And sometimes, God gives us our request. He lets us have that worldly success, or that illicit relationship, or that material comfort we lusted after. And for a moment, the meat is between our teeth. But it is always, always followed by a plague. It is a spiritual plague, a leanness of soul, an emptiness that is far worse than the hunger that preceded it. The world's quail always leads to the graves of craving.
But the gospel is the good news that there is a feast that does not kill. There is a table where the food gives life. At the cross, Jesus took the plague that we deserved. He entered the ultimate Kibroth-hattaavah on our behalf. He was struck down by the righteous anger of God so that we, the greedy and the craving, might be forgiven.
And He invites us to a different meal. He says, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you." He offers us not a deluge of quail that leads to death, but the bread and wine that lead to life everlasting. He is the only satisfaction for our deepest cravings. The choice before us is the same choice that was before Israel. Will we despise the heavenly bread and lust for the food of Egypt? Or will we come to the Lord's table with gratitude, confessing that He alone is our portion, and find in Him the satisfaction that our souls were made for? May God grant us the grace to flee the graves of craving and to feast on the bread of life.