Kibroth-hattaavah

Biblical Text

Kibroth-hattaavah is a wilderness campsite mentioned in Numbers 11. The "mixt multitude" living among Israel first gave way to craving, and the children of Israel also wept and said they wanted meat to eat. Longing for the fish and vegetables they had eaten in Egypt, they complained about the manna (Numbers 11:4–6). Moses cried out to God that he could not bear the people alone. God appointed seventy elders to share Moses' burden and sent a wind that brought quail down on every side of the camp. The people gathered quail for two days and nights, and "while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague" (Numbers 11:33). "And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted," and the people journeyed from there to Hazeroth (Numbers 11:34–35).

The place name appears again in the list of wilderness encampments, after the wilderness of Sinai and before Hazeroth (Numbers 33:16–17). In Deuteronomy 9:22, Moses names it together with Taberah and Massah as places where the people provoked the LORD to wrath.

Background

The name combines the Hebrew words qibroth ("graves") and ta'awah ("craving, desire") and is commonly rendered "graves of craving." The site appears to have lain somewhere in the wilderness roughly three days' journey from Mount Sinai, but its exact location has not been identified. Scholars have proposed several candidate sites, but there is no consensus.

Significance Throughout Scripture

Psalms 78:26–31 and 106:13–15 recall this event, recounting that God granted the people's demand yet judged their craving. In the New Testament, Paul urges believers to take the experience of the wilderness generation as a warning, saying "we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted" (1 Corinthians 10:6). He goes on to say that these things were written as examples (1 Corinthians 10:11–12). Interpreters read this passage in connection with the events at Kibroth-hattaavah.

Interpretive Questions

• Relationship to Exodus 16: Exodus 16 also describes quail coming down, but no judgment follows on that occasion. The prevailing view treats the two accounts as separate events.
• Meaning of "two cubits": The phrase "as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth" in Numbers 11:31 is read by some to mean that the quail were piled up to that height, and by others to mean that they flew low at that height. Translations vary in their wording.
• Nature of the plague: The text explains the plague as the wrath of the LORD. Some have proposed natural explanations, such as poisoning from quail that had eaten toxic plants, but the text itself does not say this.
• Distinguishing the text from embellishments: The text does not say that everyone who ate the quail died. Those who were buried are described as "the people that lusted."
• Other themes in the same chapter: The account of the seventy elders in the same chapter and the words of Numbers 11:29, "would God that all the LORD's people were prophets," are sometimes cited together in discussions of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.