Complaining today about yesterday won’t make tomorrow better. Prayer is a much better plan!
Nobody was cared for like the Israelites. They had been delivered from Pharaoh’s army with supernatural power. They were fed with supernatural food when God had “given them of the bread of heaven” (Ps 78:24). They had supernatural guidance and protection, with a pillar of cloud by day and a fire-like pillar at night. And, most amazing of all, they were invited into a supernatural relationship with God Himself. Yet for all this, “the people complained” (Num 11:1). The word commonly used about their verbal ingratitude is murmur. What an expressive word! It’s onomatopoeia, a word that imitates the sound it makes—like hiss, tinkle, crash, or pop. If you hear the undertones of an unhappy crowd, it sounds just like that, a murmur. Interestingly, the Hebrew word translated murmur is also translated as remain or stay. People who murmur are stuck there, and can’t seem to get past their complaint. We don’t know the reason for this complaining, but “it displeased the Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp” (v 1). Who were these people on the outer edge of the camp? We’ll meet them again in the following studies because they didn’t learn their lesson. But this incident should be sufficient to show us what God thinks of murmuring. We may think we’re complaining about our circumstances, or our boss, or our family situation. But as Moses put it, “Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord” (Ex 16:8, KJV). Let’s be careful! Murmuring is acting as if God doesn’t care, a kind of practiced atheism. We of all people are the most blessed in history, so let’s replace our grumbling with gratitude today!