Numbers Chapter 11    

“Taberah.” “Taberah” means “burning” in Hebrew.

“mixed multitude.” When Israel left Egypt, referred to as “the Exodus,” so many Egyptians and people of other nationalities had been impressed by Israel and Israel’s God, Yahweh, that they left Egypt too and went with the Israelites (Exod. 12:37-38). These non-Israelite people were referred to as the “mixed multitude.”

“a lust, yes, a lust.” This is the figure of speech polyptoton, where a word is repeated for emphasis. It means a great lust.

[For more on polyptoton and this way of translating it, see commentary on Genesis 2:16.]

“wept again.” The Israelites had murmured and wept several times since leaving Egypt.

“appetite.” The Hebrew word is nephesh (#05315 נֶפֶשׁ), often translated “soul.” Here it is being used for a working of the soul inside mankind, our “appetite.”

[For more on nephesh, see Appendix 16: “Usages of ‘Soul.’”]

“I will take some of the spirit that is on you and will put it on them.” This verse is not saying that God would take some holy spirit away from Moses so that he would end up with less of it. It is saying that God would take “some of” the kind of spirit that was on Moses and give it to the other elders. Similarly, for example, let's say you had a house that was painted yellow and white with accents of blue, and you also had an old shed. Then one day you said, “I am going to take some of the colors on the house and paint the shed.” You would not be saying that you would somehow strip the colors off the house and put them on the shed, you would be saying that the kinds of colors that were on the house, such as yellow and white, would be used to paint the shed. Similarly, Moses had the kind of holy spirit God gave to people before the Day of Pentecost, and He was going to give that to some of the elders of Israel as well.

God gave His gift of holy spirit to some people in the Old Testament to empower them. Then God gave a different gift of holy spirit to the Christian Church.

[For more on the difference between the gift of holy spirit God gave in the Old Testament and the gift of holy spirit that Christians have today, see commentary on Ephesians 1:13.]

“make yourselves holy.” The people were to do what it took to make themselves holy in the sight of God (cp. Lev. 11:44).

[For more on “make yourselves holy,” see commentary on Joshua 3:5.]

“I wish that all Yahweh’s people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his spirit on them!” This wish was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, when every believer in Christ got born again of God’s spirit (cp. Acts 2:38)