Surprised by Grumbling

Grumbling never gets much attention as a problem. Grumbling is not one of the traditional seven deadly sins. In fact, it probably wouldn’t make it onto the list even if the list were expanded to include the fifty deadly sins. Nobody ever goes to see a counselor and says, “Help me! I’m addicted to grumbling.” There are no meetings of Grumblers Anonymous or twelve-step programs designed to cure the condition. This is certainly not because of a lack of people who suffer from the problem. Which of us has never grumbled about something in this life? We grumble about our politicians and car mechanics, our jobs and our homes, our spouses and children.

Perhaps we assume that since we all do it so often, grumbling can’t really be so bad. It is virtually our national pastime, so engrained that it has even been described as a “God-given right.”1 Only rarely is grumbling recognized in its true seriousness. In this study we will see the power of grumbling, the deadly consequences of grumbling, and God’s true remedy for grumbling. Grumbling is here exposed in all of its destructiveness; yet the good news of the Bible is that grumbling’s complaint will not be the last word.


SCENE ONE: A CAMEO PICTURE

The story unfolds in Numbers 11 in two related incidents. There is a brief cameo scene in verses 1–3, recounting the events that took place at Taberah (“burning”), followed by a much longer and more complex scene in verses 4–35, recounting what transpired at nearby Kibroth-Hattaavah2 (“graves of craving”). These two scenes work in tandem, with the second scene providing a contrast to the paradigm laid out in the first.3 As a paradigm, the first scene is stripped down to its most basic elements. First, the people grumbled against the Lord (v. 1), and he responded with anger and fiery judgment. There we see grumbling and its deadly consequences. Yet when the people cried out to Moses, he interceded with the Lord on their behalf and the judgment ceased (v. 2). Only the outskirts of the camp were consumed. There we see the remedy for grumbling: the effective intercession of the mediator God has appointed. In other words, the first scene shows us that grumbling is a sin that has potentially serious consequences, but those consequences could be averted by the intercession of Moses.

This cameo scene shows us that what is at stake in this chapter is not just the sin of grumbling. It is also the role of Moses as a prophet. An important part of the work of a prophet in Old Testament times was to intercede for the people. On the day when the Lord’s judgment was about to be poured out on his people, it was the prophet’s calling to stand between the people and their God, averting God’s wrath by intercessory prayer. This was hard and dangerous work, a task compared to standing in the breached wall of a besieged city, the most dangerous position in an assault (see Ezekiel 13:5; 22:30). Yet without faithful prophets, the people’s future would be bleak indeed. As the archetypal prophet, the pattern after whom all other prophets were framed (see Deuteronomy 18:15), Moses had both the ability and obligation to approach God and intercede for the people. This is exactly what he did at Taberah.


SCENE TWO: GRUMBLING IN FULL FLOWER

With that information as background, we are now ready to look at the second and much more complicated scene in the latter half of Numbers 11. Once again the story begins with grumbling. In this second scene, the power of grumbling becomes much clearer. The grumbling started with “the rabble,” the riff-raff (hāsapsup),4 who lived on the fringe of the camp (v. 4). This is the mixed multitude of all nationalities who came out of Egypt with God’s people but had never fully assimilated and taken on Israel’s values and standards. The grumbling then spread from the riff-raff to infect the rest of the Israelites (v. 4). Soon everyone joined in. The content of the grumbling also becomes clear in this episode: it is no longer simply the difficulty or “misfortunes” (literally, “evil,” rā) of the wilderness (v. 1), but rather the recollection of the supposed goodness of Egypt. In the imagination of the people, Egypt was now transformed into the land flowing with milk and honey—or at least the land of free fish and varied vegetables—cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (v. 5). Meanwhile, the people complained that in the wilderness all they had to taste and look at was boring old manna (v. 6).


THE CONTAGIOUS NATURE OF GRUMBLING

Their complaint exposes a pair of important lessons about the sin of grumbling. In the first place, grumbling is extremely contagious. It is an infectious disease that is easily passed from one person to the next. It typically originates among those with little or no spiritual insight, but it can easily be passed on from them to the whole community and draw in those who ought to know better. This is true in our setting just as much as it was for them. Grumbling is a sin you can catch from others, which means that you need to be careful who you spend your time with and how you spend your time with them. I’m certainly not suggesting that you should cut yourself off from everyone who lacks spiritual maturity, but in such relationships you should certainly be aware of who is influencing whom.

The contagious power of sin means that ministry is always a messy business. One of the challenges that Israel faced constantly was balancing on the one hand their calling to incorporate Gentiles into the community of faith (as with Hobab in Numbers 10:29–32) with the danger on the other hand that such people would bring into the community their flawed worldviews and perspectives and end up leading Israel astray. That remains a challenge for the church, doesn’t it? We are certainly not free to cut ourselves off from those who most need the gospel—after all, Jesus came to call the sick, not the healthy (Matthew 9:12). Our calling as the church is to be a spiritual emergency room, not a spiritual health spa. Yet at the same time we need to recognize the dangers that come with our calling and be on our guard against the spiritual diseases that can so easily infiltrate and infect our community. In particular, we need to watch out for the communicable disease of grumbling.


GRUMBLING AND UNBELIEF

The reason why grumbling typically starts with those who have little or no spiritual insight, those on the edge of the community, is because the root of grumbling is unbelief. The vision of the grumblers was fatally flawed. Their perspective on both the past and the present was distorted. The past suddenly became a golden age in which everything had been wonderful: “Egypt! The old country! That glorious place of fish suppers and great salads! How green was the grass in the Nile valley!” Now one might well ask, “If it was really such a wonderful place, why were they so eager to leave it? What about the harsh taskmasters of Egypt, the endless making of bricks without straw?” (Exodus 5:6–21). Their memory of the past had become strangely forgetful, developing strategic holes.

Not only was their memory of the past selective and flawed, so was their perspective on the present. We might paraphrase their grumbling like this: “If I see one more piece of manna, I think I’m going to be sick. Manna, manna, manna—that’s all we ever eat anymore. Manna is boring, unattractive, and tasteless. We want some other kind of food.” That was their skewed perspective on God’s provision, and lest we be deceived into having some sympathy for them, the narrator takes the time to challenge each of their assertions in turn.

First, he points out the fact that the manna was not unattractive; on the contrary, it looked like bdellium (v. 7), a prized substance that was one of the products of the area immediately surrounding the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:12). The Israelites didn’t have to pay for the manna either: it came down free every night, along with the dew (v. 9). Nor was it boring: it could be prepared in a variety of tasty ways—ground or boiled or baked (v. 8). Given the opportunity, an ancient cooking magazine could surely have produced an issue entitled “365 Ways to Cook Manna!” Finally, far from being tasteless, it was extremely appetizing (v. 8). The NIV’s description, “like something made with olive oil,” or even that in the ESV, “the taste of cakes baked with oil,” doesn’t sound nearly as mouth-watering as it should. Much better is the translation, “it tasted like a pastry cooked with the finest oil” (HCSB). It may have looked somewhat like porridge, but it actually tasted more like the most delicious donuts. It was indeed “the bread of heaven,” as Psalm 78:24 (NKJV) calls it, the original angel food cake! This is the food that was not good enough for them!

Isn’t this what grumbling always does? Grumbling distorts your vision. It reimagines the past as a golden land, it despises the good gifts that God has surrounded you with in the present, and it completely ignores God’s promises for the future. That’s why I say that the root of grumbling is unbelief. Grumbling is an unbelief that robs you of your joy. It is the exact opposite of faith, which sees the past and present with clear eyes but has its gaze joyfully fixed on God’s promises for the future. Faith believes God’s promises to be certain, no matter what difficulties the present may hold.

This also explains why grumbling is so contagious: when we talk to people of faith, we find that strengthens our faith, for we begin to see the world through their eyes. However, when we sit with people caught in unbelief, it is very easy to have our own perspective skewed. We too can start to think more highly than we should of the past and more critically than is accurate of the present. We too can start to say, “Before I became a Christian, how easy my life was. I didn’t have to get up on Sunday mornings or give my money to the church or get along with all these people. But now—oh, how awful it is! My life is more than anyone should have to bear.” Or we may say, “Before I got married or had children or moved to my present town, my situation was so much easier and better than it is now. How miserable my life has become!” Or perhaps, “When I was in such and such a church, what a wonderful place it was. We had none of the problems there that we see with this church.” In reality, though, your past was almost certainly not as rosy as you remember it, nor is your present quite as bleak as you may think it to be.


GRUMBLING AND FAITH

But what if it we are in dire difficulties right now? Let us suppose, just for a moment, that the past really was better than life is now and that our present is truly miserable in comparison. What then? The eye of faith is fixed not in the past, nor in the present, but in the future, on the glorious things that God has promised his people. That is where solid and lasting joy comes from, unaffected by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Imagine that Egypt was indeed a fine place to live and that the manna in the wilderness was truly miserable fare. So what? The Israelites needed to remember that they were only camping out there on the way to the land God had promised to give them. The wilderness was not their home.

This is how faith conquers the temptation to grumble. Faith laughs over short rations and hardships because it remembers that the present is not all there is. These present difficulties will only make the final rest all the sweeter. The tougher the climb, the sweeter is the rest at the top of the mountain. The more limited the food at the campsite, the better the steak tastes when we finally return to civilization. When we flew home after two years in Liberia, we stopped overnight in Amsterdam. What I remember vividly is the breakfast buffet the next morning, stuffed with all kinds of food that we hadn’t tasted for two years. Even ordinary things like fresh milk tasted so sweet because it had been so long since we had enjoyed them. Faith remembers how to look forward to the buffet! When your eyes are fixed on future glories, present trials become not only bearable but ultimately inconsequential. Faith is what conquers grumbling and leads to a life of joy.


THE GRUMBLING OF MOSES

Yet grumbling is such a powerfully contagious sin that in the wilderness it even infected Moses. Faced with a weeping people, Moses himself was caught up in the spirit of grumbling. He didn’t grumble about the food but about the people: they were an evil5 and a burden to him (v. 11). He said to God in essence, “What did I do to deserve this? Why should I be weighed down with them? Am I their mother or their nurse? Where can I get meat for them all? I cannot carry such a burden, so you might as well put me to death right now” (vv. 11–15).

In the Hebrew original, in these five verses of complaint Moses refers to himself no fewer than twenty times. This is not coincidental. Whereas faith looks to God, unbelief turns in on ourselves and our inability. Moses’ thinking had become just as skewed as that of the riff-raff, completely focused on his present pain and oblivious to the Lord’s promise of protection and provision. Instead of taking his burden to God and asking for strength, he grumbled about it. Instead of trusting God to do the good things for his people he had so confidently asserted in the previous chapter (10:29–32), Moses questioned God’s ability to do what he had promised and to provide the meat that the people craved (11:21, 22). How could even God provide meat for such a vast army? Moses was caught up in unbelief.

The result of Moses’ unbelief was that instead of interceding for his lost and straying people, he joined them in their sin of grumbling. This is a common temptation for all those in leadership over God’s flock. When the sheep are unwilling to be led in the way they should go, it is easy for us to become frustrated with them and grumble about them. However, when we grumble about our flock, we are merely revealing the unbelief in our own hearts. We have failed to believe that God will sanctify our sheep in his time. Often it is our pride that has been challenged, for we are used to taking the credit for whatever progress our flock is making. If we have faith in the efficacy of God’s sanctification program, however, and remember that it is his work through and through, we will intercede for our errant sheep instead of grumbling about them. Instead of fuming over our assignment, we will pray for our people patiently, confident that God will work in their hearts in due time to accomplish all of his purposes for them and for us.

Moses’ failure to intercede for his people posed a serious problem for Israel. In the paradigm scene, the Lord became angry and judged the people, but Moses interceded on their behalf. This time, though, there was no intercession, no one to turn away the Lord’s anger. What would happen to the grumblers if there was no one to intercede for them? Would Moses and the people all have to die for their sin?


JUDGMENT AND GRACE

What happened was a unique combination of judgment and grace, both for Moses and for the people. On the one hand, God gave the grumblers exactly what they wanted. Moses got the help he asked for, and the people got their meat. Yet the apparent similarity highlights the ultimate difference. Moses got what he sought in a way that combined judgment and blessing, while the people’s answer was entirely judgment.

Let’s look first at the way God dealt with the grumbling Israelites. They wanted meat? God gave them meat, more than they could ever have believed possible. Moses might not have been able to imagine where enough meat could be found to feed such a multitude, but God’s power was not limited by Moses’ lack of faith. The Lord simply sent a powerful wind that drove in vast flocks of quail that rained down all around the people (v. 31).6 Even those who gathered least collected ten homers (roughly sixty bushels, or more than enough to fill a pair of fifty-five-gallon drums). God never does things by half measures. The people got exactly what they asked for. Yet at the same time this demonstration of God’s power was a curse, not a blessing. Even while they were taking the first bites of their longed-for meat, the Lord’s anger burned against his people and struck down those who had had the craving for meat. They saw the demonstration of God’s power but did not live to enjoy it.

Is it too strong to say that God deals with some people in the same way today? He apparently gives to some people everything they ask of him: fame, wealth, health, and a life of ease. The psalmist saw wicked people in his day who were prospering and thriving, and it almost caused his faith to stumble (Psalm 73:2–14). But then he came to understand that though the present might seem to hold everything these people wanted, God had placed them in a slippery location, and their final destiny was death (vv. 18, 19). One of God’s most profound judgments on lost sinners is to give them everything they ask for. They are on a smooth road to destruction, with nothing to turn them around.

Yet God didn’t deal with Moses in that way. Even though Moses sinned by grumbling and though his sin would have ongoing repercussions, God dealt with him graciously. He was not struck down for his sin. Why did God deal with Moses differently from the riff-raff? They all grumbled, and they all doubted God’s Word and his goodness; yet God’s answer to the request of Moses was ultimately a blessing both to him and to the people, whereas in the case of the others the answer to their request led simply to death. The answer is that God’s grace was shown to the one he had chosen. It is not that Moses was better than the others, but rather that God’s purposes were better for him. God had chosen Moses and was gracious and merciful to him, but he showed no mercy to the others, to the outsiders. That is God’s prerogative. None of them deserved God’s mercy. Yet God is sovereign: he has mercy on whom he will have mercy and hardens those whom he will harden.

What that means is that you and I, as believers, do not have to fear that if we sinfully grumble and demand the wrong thing from God, it will lead to our destruction. If we have trusted in Christ, then we have been chosen by God for good purposes—for blessing, not curse. God is at work in us to make us holy and to present us before him blameless; having begun that good work, he will not abandon it, even though we sin (Philippians 1:6).


THE SHARING OF LEADERSHIP

Yet we still cannot take the sin of grumbling lightly. Both judgment and blessing are evident in the way that God dealt with Moses. Moses wanted someone with whom to share the burden of leading the people. God gave him what he requested in greater abundance than he could have imagined. God took from the Spirit he had placed on Moses and transferred part of it to the seventy elders (vv. 17, 24, 25). When they received the Spirit, they prophesied briefly, demonstrating that they had been empowered for leadership alongside Moses.7 Nor was the Spirit shared merely with those who were present with Moses at the time. It also fell on two other elders, Eldad and Medad, who were nowhere near Moses but were in the camp (v. 26). They too prophesied, showing that the work of the Spirit could bypass Moses altogether. God could pour out his Spirit on anyone, whenever and wherever he chose.

No wonder Joshua was concerned by this turn of events. He understood clearly the implications of this: if the Spirit could descend on anyone anywhere, then Moses’ unique role as prophetic mediator in the community might be compromised. Such a sharing of the Spirit that was in Moses necessarily diminished Moses. It is no coincidence that from this moment forward in the book of Numbers, the question of Moses’ leadership of the people became an issue. Recognizing what was at stake, Joshua urged Moses to take action immediately to stop this turn of events (v. 28). Moses, however, responded to God’s dealings with him with greater spiritual maturity than Joshua. He was not concerned about his own status, and instead of worrying about the judgment aspect he focused rather on the blessing that God was bringing. He said in essence, “Joshua, don’t worry about my reputation. Even if God bypasses my leadership altogether and gives all of God’s people gifts of leadership, that would be a wonderful thing” (v. 29). Moses had started thinking like a believer again: instead of grumbling, he was content to believe that God would work all of this together for his good.


NEEDED: A BETTER PROPHET

If even a godly leader like Moses gets angry and upset with God and grumbles, requiring God’s mercy and grace, then we need someone better than Moses to intercede for us. We need a better prophet—someone who will not only intercede for us consistently when we sin but who himself will take the wrath of God in our place. We need someone who can bear the burden of the leadership of his people on his own without growing weary and frustrated. We need someone who can stand in the gap and take the punishment we deserve. We need Jesus.

Jesus is indeed a better mediator than Moses. He does not give up on us after the first incidence of grumbling. He does not need seventy helpers to share in the ministry of intercession, for he possesses the Spirit in full measure. He is never too tired or cranky to intercede for us but, on the contrary, always intercedes on our behalf (Hebrews 7:25). This is illustrated by the events of his final night on earth. As he looked around the table at the last supper, he was surrounded by men who would either betray him or abandon him in the hours ahead. Instead of supporting him in prayer, they would fall asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. Had I been in his position, I would surely have grumbled about the disciples I had chosen. Yet even when Peter cockily asserted that he would never deny Jesus, Jesus did not grumble. Instead he simply said to Peter, “I have interceded for you.” His High-Priestly prayer of John 17 is an extended intercession for these soon-to-be-unfaithful followers—and for us as well, who are no more reliable than they. Where Moses grumbled, Jesus interceded: he is indeed a better mediator than Moses.

What is more, Jesus himself bore the judgment curse that we deserved because of our grumbling and unbelief, and in exchange he gave us the blessing that was his by rights. Are you a grumbling unbeliever? I know that I often am. Because of my grumbling unbelief, Jesus went to the cross where he experienced the full weight of the Father’s wrath against sin. Through his uncomplaining and faithful obedience in draining the cup of undeserved suffering, Jesus earned the Father’s favor on my behalf. It is his sacrifice that enables a just and holy God to show me undeserved mercy and grace instead of the eternal death that I deserve by nature. Jesus earned that grace on my behalf, and in him I receive it free of charge.

If that is so, how can I grumble any longer? If my God has loved me that much and has paid that price to redeem me from my lostness, how can I complain about the rations he has provided along the way? How can I moan about the company and the conditions of service when Jesus has gone through the valley of death and separation from God on my behalf? God has been so faithful and so good! Keeping your eyes fixed on the cross will surely inoculate you against the temptation to grumble.


THE ANSWER TO MOSES’ PRAYER

What is more, in Christ the prayer of Moses has finally been granted. Moses longed to see all of God’s people filled with the Spirit, and on the Day of Pentecost that dream came finally true (Acts 2:14–41). Since Christ’s ascension into Heaven, the Spirit is shared not only with seventy elders but with all believers, Jews and Gentiles alike, as many as the Lord God calls to himself. That means that if you are a believer today, you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Spirit empowers us for witness. When the Holy Spirit came on the elders, they prophesied, bringing God’s truth to bear on those around them. For them it was only a partial, temporary experience, a sign to the community of the Lord’s presence and work. For us, the Spirit’s work is permanent, an ongoing sign of the Lord’s presence and activity in our hearts. The Holy Spirit gives each of us power to witness to him, enabling us to speak to those around us about their need of a Savior and God’s provision in Christ. Grumbling and its root, unbelief, are not the only contagious things in Scripture. Faith is also contagious, and we are called to be carriers of faith, passing on the truth to everyone with whom we have contact. Whom do we plan to infect with the gospel this week? Like the common cold, the gospel is not passed on from a distance but through personal contact and close relationships. We must pray and plan, therefore, for opportunities to spread our faith to all those with whom we come into contact.

The gift of the Spirit also means that we have all been empowered to intercede for one another. One of the great works of the Spirit in the New Testament is teaching us how and for what we should pray (Romans 8:26). The Spirit takes our ill-formed requests and makes them presentable before the presence of God himself. Moses couldn’t carry the burden of intercession alone. It was too great a task for him. So, too, the work of interceding for one another in prayer is not simply a task for the pastors and elders of the church. It is a work in which we can all join. Young people are not too young to pray for their friends and for others in their church. Some older believers may be physically unable to perform other ministries, but they are never too old to intercede. Why don’t you make a list of five people for whom you will commit yourself to pray regularly? If you change the list every month, then every year you will pray for sixty people. Imagine the impact that such prayers will have, both in your church and around the world.

Unbelief works itself out in grumbling, which leads to judgment and death. Faith works itself out in thanksgiving and intercession, which leads to blessing and hope. Praise God for the gift of his Son, whose death frees us from the consequences of our unbelief. Give thanks for the gift of the Spirit, whose ministry enables us to be intercessors. Live with faith in God, looking to his promises, crying out to him on the basis of them, and grumbling will find no soil in which to take root in your heart.

Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 147–156). Crossway Books.