2/21 Numbers 11 - Dangerous Grumbling

There are times, in all of our lives, when we're tempted to grumble and complain. These times can discourage ourselves and others. Today, we'll study Numbers 11 and see how the Children of Israel's grumbling brought discouragement to Moses and judgment upon themselves. 

DISCUSSION AND STUDY QUESTIONS:

1.    The podcast suggests that Numbers might be one of the hardest books of the Bible to read and understand. What books have you found difficult to work through? Why?
2.    What does the people’s complaints indicate about their trust in the Lord? How is this a break in their covenant with Him? 
3.    What was the primary complaint of this passage that was given in verses 4-6? 
4.    What does verse 10 indicate about the solidarity of the people in this grumbling? Does this unity in the midst of their grumbling prove that their grumbling was righteous? How do you know?
5.    In verse 18, the Lord called the people to consecrate themselves to Him. According to Leviticus 1, how was a person consecrated to the Lord? What was the reason for this consecration? What did the need for this consecration indicate about their standing with the Lord? 
6.    What did the Lord tell Moses do in verses 16 to 17? What were these people for? How do you think they would have helped Moses bear the pressures of leadership? If you’re in a position of leadership, how can you help the other leaders around you bear up under their burdens? 
7.    When the Lord provided quail in verse 31, how did the people respond in verse 32? What does their response indicate about who or what they were putting their trust in? 
8.    Although there is no indication that the people had obeyed God’s command to consecrate themselves to Him (from verse 18), even if they had reconsecrated themselves to Him, how does their hoarding of the quail indicate that they weren’t actually trusting Him? 
9.    As we consider all that we’ve been reading about the Children of Israel, how were these people falling into a pattern of complaining? How was this affecting their own well-being? Their relationship with the Lord? Their relationships with one another? Their relationship with the leadership? 
10.    What was the ultimate outcome of their complaining? Was it a righteous outcome?
11.    The podcast pointed out that in verse 21, Moses refers to 600,000 people, but we know from Numberers 1:46 that the number was actually 603,550. The podcast explained some principles regarding the Bible’s use of round and specific numbers? What principles were given? How does this help us understand these differences?
12.    In this passage, Moses clearly was discouraged. How did he handle his discouragement in this passage? How should he have handled it?

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