“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” the people asked. “For there is no food or water, and we detest this miserable food” (Numbers 21:5). This was neither the first nor the last time they would complain in this way.

“There is no food or water,” they complained – well, except for the miraculous food that God provided, manna from heaven six days a week, with enough on the sixth day so that everyone could take the sabbath off from gathering food. I can see that people might get bored of eating the same thing every day – although throughout most of human history, people have eaten one staple food day by day, and have been glad there was something to eat.

In response to their whining, God sent fiery serpents whose bite killed many (21:6); the people confessed their rebelliousness and asked Moses to intercede (21:7); and a specific remedy was established, with Moses making a bronze serpent and setting it on a pole, so that people who had been bitten could look at it and survive (21:8-9).

There is something tragicomic in this sequence of incidents: the complaint regarding the inadequacy of God’s provision, leading to the wrath of God, leading to the recognition of sin, leading to intercession and restoration – until just a little later, when they would run through this sequence all over again. In the meantime, a number of people were dead: perhaps some of the dead were complainers, perhaps some were children at play. So often the innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty. I wonder how many children died, in this case, because God’s people complained that on their journey through the wilderness, in a place where there was nothing else to eat, they were dissatisfied with the miraculous manna God had given them.

There was a miracle every day whereby God provided food for them, but somehow that wasn’t good enough: and so they complained, and then people died. This is a story that happened many times: they kept getting this wrong. Is it strange that they were so slow to learn this lesson? Yet is the spirit of whining in ancient Israel really any different from the spirit of whining in us? Despite all that we have received, don’t we again and again complain that God’s blessings just aren’t as good as we feel like we should get?

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And yet you have provided for us in such abundance, O Lord! Your mercy is so great, and your blessings overflow for us day by day. Give us hearts of gratitude, we pray. Teach us to overflow in thanksgiving, for all your rich goodness to us.

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