“Is the Lord’s Hand Waxed Short?”

‎When the numbering of the people was completed the nation set forth joyously, leaving the foot of Sinai, where so much had happened, and marching north toward the promised land of Palestine. Yet the way was long and hard; so that as the days passed, the fickle Israelites began to murmur. For a year they had lived on manna, and they were grown very weary of it. They recalled all the pleasant things they had eaten in Egypt. Especially they longed for meat. Moses knew of their craving and appealed to God for aid; but the great giver of all was displeased that His gifts should be so little valued, and He declared that the people should be punished by being so stuffed with meat that they could eat no more. When Moses questioned how this should be possible with so vast a multitude, and in so bare a region, God answered him with His solemn question, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?”

‎Thereon there came a vast cloud of quails, which covered the camp and spread for a day’s journey on either side. For two days the Israelites ate of them. Then, “while the flesh was yet between their teeth,” God smote them with a plague, so that those who had lusted most for the flesh food, perished there.