I feel like I was kind to the children of Israel in terms of their complaining for water. Now, in this chapter I am starting to see why they are remembered as chronic complainers and slow to hearken to the Lord:
2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:
3 And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
Then the Lord responds:
4 ¶Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.
They were given what I thought were very simple instructions concerning the gathering and consuming of the manna. But it seems that in every way they could have possibly violated those instructions, they did so, and that it was only after they experienced the negative consequences of their disobedience that they began to conform to the directions of the Lord. For example, at first they gathered more manna in a single day than they should have, and it was only after they saw that the manna would rot and be of no use to them that they discontinued that practice. The Lord doesn't like that kind of thing, as He so indicated:
28 And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?
From the events depicted in this chapter I can start to see why it was said of the children of Israel that they were slow to hearken to the Lord. May I and my house be more quick to observe the commandments of the Lord. May we follow the example of our common father, Abraham, who, after receiving a difficult commandment, got up early the next morning and set out to fulfill the Lord's will.
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